EDUCATIONAL SERVICES
TWO ELK ENTERPRISE
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OUR SCHOOL
Listen to or DOWNLOAD (right CLICK, "Save as..." to folder of your choice on your computer.) TLAKAELEL and translator Alejandro lopez on
Our School & The First Lesson, a 7:45 Min MP3 audio Sound Byte from "America, This Is Our Message", a 1 HR Radio Program
on El Ceremonio De Los Quatros Flechas/The Ceremony of the Four Arrows, produced in 1977 at KPFA-FM, Berkeley..
TWO ELK: You have a school, in Mexico, and we'd like to know more about your school. What is your school at home and how does it work? Is it like our schools here?
TLAKAELEL: Our school is completeley different. and the concept of schools that is had here in the United States is completely different to the concept of schools among Indian people...
"Our school does not have facilities or buildings.
Our school is nature, it is the fields, it is the woods, it is the stars, it is the sky...
We have some students and we study with them together.
We are all students and we are all teachers.
We are students of those who know more
and we are teachers of those who know less...
In our school the teachers knowledge
is not imposed on the students.
and we make no annual examinations...
In these schools, the student is answered and instructed
only what he wants to know...
and in that way they learn more and quicker.
This is the way the old ones taught and this is the way we are teaching in our school.
There, we call it the Kalpulli of Koacalco".
THE FIRST LESSON
¨
¨ ¨TWO ELK: It's important that we go through the first step, and for...at least in the United States, we...that first step means for the Native people, or whoever it is, themselves that may be seeking this knowledge, it means finding themselves. In listening you speak at another occasion, I heard a story and I think it would be nice if we could finish now with that story.
TLAKAELEL: It is not a story...
"This is the way that the education of our children began, and it contains all of the knowledge...all of the teachings that he will receive during his existence.
When a child reached a certain age...he would be dressed as for a feast, and then he was asked to go and cultivate a small plant of corn...
During that year he only cultivated one small corn plant.
When his elders went out to cultivate, he would himself,
go out and plant his small corn, and he would take care of it.
When the time for harvest came, and others harvested their corn.
He would also reap his ears of corn.
and would take them back with them...
In the large house...where he was accepted and received,
then he would be asked these questions...
'How did you accomplish this?
How did you obtain this ear of corn?
What did you need to produce corn?'
and he would answer,...
'I needed tools.
I needed the Earth, and the seeds, and water,...time,...sun,...wind or air.'
and they would ask him...
'Was that all?'
and the child replied...
'Yes...'
but the elders replied...
'No...that wasn't all that was necessary.
You...you were also needed in creating that corn.
You brought together all of the elements that surround you in nature.
You allied yourself with them...
You worked with them and you were able to produce this corn with all of them.
and so it is with the rest of life.'
"That everything that we need to create, we have at hand,
we have it close.
From today forward your mission will be,
To bring together all the elements for creating."
TLAKEALEL
Kalpulli De Koacalco
Koacalco, Mexico
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EDUCATIONAL SERVICES
TWO ELK ENTERPRISE
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© R. Two Elk, May 2000
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