Conceptualizing knowledge, in the way that is represented as Indigenous Knowledge in Brayboy and Maughan’s (2009) essay, is truly a method that modern western educators can learn from and adopt into educational pedagogy. A learning point for western educators from this reading is understood when the authors write, “Indigenous Knowledge Systems value contextualized knowledge that is local and particular to the setting,” and follows this statement by adding, “that all knowledge cannot necessarily be universal in its application because of the importance of place, space, and context” (Brayboy & Maughan, 2009). This concept of thinking calls for the educator to teach students the how and why of what they are learning as opposed to just funneling the main idea through and moving on. An example used in this reading of contextual education where knowledge is specific to what is going on right then and there is the bean and plant. Rather than teaching to the basic idea of the bean being watered and eventually sprouting into a plant, which can be adapted universally for other contexts, the student teacher in this essay breaks down the learning to have the students understand the context of how and why this specific bean will become a plant including the process it will take. I believe that western educators can learn from this example of contextualized knowledge in order to benefit student learning experience through the understanding that the bean is a living thing that is interacts and is affected by all things in the same environment.  

Conceptualizing knowledge, in the way that is represented as Indigenous Knowledge in Brayboy and Maughan’s (2009) essay, is truly a method that modern western educators can learn from and adopt into educational pedagogy. A learning point for western educators from this reading is understood when the authors write, “Indigenous Knowledge Systems value contextualized knowledge that is local and particular to the setting,” and follows this statement by adding, “that all knowledge cannot necessarily be universal in its application because of the importance of place, space, and context” (Brayboy & Maughan, 2009). This concept of thinking calls for the educator to teach students the how and why of what they are learning as opposed to just funneling the main idea through and moving on. An example used in this reading of contextual education where knowledge is specific to what is going on right then and there is the bean and plant. Rather than teaching to the basic idea of the bean being watered and eventually sprouting into a plant, which can be adapted universally for other contexts, the student teacher in this essay breaks down the learning to have the students understand the context of how and why this specific bean will become a plant including the process it will take. I believe that western educators can learn from this example of contextualized knowledge in order to benefit student learning experience through the understanding that the bean is a living thing that is interacts and is affected by all things in the same environment.