The Mind of a Child
Face to Face Media Ltd.
SR 17 - LORNA WILLIAMS AND REUVEN FEUERSTEIN
REUVEN ... know that you were here five years ago, Lorna.
LORNA Ya, in 1988.
REUVEN When did you first hear about me before coming. I
can’t imagine that you just came in without to know
something about ...
LORNA No, I first heard about you Reuven in 1979 when I was
still living in Mount Currie. We had, um, um, taken over,
taken over control of our school, ah, in 1973 and, um, for,
from 1973 onward we were looking for some answers that would
help us to understand why our children were not performing,
um, academically well in school and, um, and I had read the
research in North America which we’re not, um, which had
many discrepancies and so in 1979, I realize now that it
must have been, um, because you were in Vancouver in ‘79, I
didn’t know that ... that I received some articles that, ah,
that you had written and, um, and it talked about, um,
motivation and language, um, cultural depravation and
cultural difference and I think that that probably was what
attracted me most, was that no where else in anything that I
had read had anyone, um, made it, made a distinguishment
between, between those two and also your definition of
cultural deprivation, um, which stated ...
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The Mind of a Child
Face to Face Media Ltd.
SR 17 - LORNA WILLIAMS AND REUVEN FEUERSTEIN
REUVEN Which made me a lot of, a lot of difficulties.
LORNA Right. And I realize why and why it was right for us,
uh, because during the seventies it was said that, that we
did not do well in schools, uh, in Canadian schools and in
American schools because we were culturally deprived of
Canadian culture and, um, American culture. No one had
talked about the importance of one’s own culture in the
development of, um, um, the ability to, to adapt to live and
uh, and so it, it was for those reasons that, um, that I, I,
um, was attracted to it, but on the other hand I rejected it
because of the, because of the term cognitive deficiencies.
And, um, because everything that had been said about was
that we were deficient in some way and I was not ready to
accept any more that, um, that, uh, that we were deficient.
And oft-, because often the deficiencies that people talked
about were that we were genetically deficient and um, so it
took me another few years before I came back to your work
and it resu-, and it resulted only because, um, I had been
looking in so many places in what people were writing about,
ya, so ...
REUVEN I must tell you something. You were among the first to,
um, understand the concept of cultural deprivation as a
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The Mind of a Child
Face to Face Media Ltd.
SR 17 - LORNA WILLIAMS AND REUVEN FEUERSTEIN
status, as a state which is not related to be, to the
culture, the culture deprives you but you being deprived of
your own culture. Because usually one des-, describes the
native and First Nation culture or the minority culture as
depriving its people. And I’ve attempted to make it very
clear, it’s not the culture which deprives, it is the fact
that individuals become deprived of their own culture which
makes them acting in a deficient way.
Now, I have had great difficulties also with the concept of
deficiencies. People tell me, why do you have to use a
negative term. Why can’t you say it, put it in a positive
way. Put it that you need clear perception, put it that you
need logical evidence, put it that ... why do you have to
call it deficient in its perceptual processes, in its
capacity, its tendency to use more sources of information,
etc. and the answer, my answer is, if I want to remedy, if I
want to improve, if I want to change, I have to call the
child by its name. I have to create myself a target for
attack, a target for remediation, a target for development,
a target for re-orientation and I have made of this
provoca-, a provocative approach which people will ask the
question and by virtue of just asking the question, I was
able to explain. I have did, I have used my technique, what
I refer to as provoking mediation.
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The Mind of a Child
Face to Face Media Ltd.
SR 17 - LORNA WILLIAMS AND REUVEN FEUERSTEIN
LORNA I recognized that very early. (LAUGHS)
REUVEN And I must tell you, I had long talks especially with
our friends, the black, Afro-, Afro-American group in, at
Yale when they came to study with me, ____(?) and ____(?)
and then also Larry Anderson came to Yale in 1980 and took
me some time to explain it.
LORNA Ya, so it took me away, but then I realized that, um,
that it was important that we have a clear image of where
it is we need to go with, um, you know in searching for some
strategies.
REUVEN You know that at this time, I was called by Mr. Barry,
Barry, can’t remember now his name, who belonged to the
lobby at the Congress(?) today, minority lobby in the
Congress(?) ...
BEEP (SLATE NO: ____)
... black but also Indian.
LORNA Oh?
SR 17 - PAGE
The Mind of a Child
Face to Face Media Ltd.
SR 17 - LORNA WILLIAMS AND REUVEN FEUERSTEIN
REUVEN And the major question was, how do you relate to the
possibility of having schools, Indian schools using the
Indian language, Navaho, Cherokee or whatever it is, rather
than using English as the first language. And, of course,
consonant(?) is my approach which is the revival of a, of
native cultures as a way to ensure mediational processes,
both in the nuclear family and in the society as at large, I
have been very much in favour of reviving native culture and
this was then used and brought up. It was the time when the
question of to whether to allow, this was the time when you,
you won(?) in ‘72, approximately, the right to have your own
school. By the same time, a little bit later eventually,
the Aleutians came to me too. Through this group, lobby
group in the Congress and I was then very much involved in
thinking, how do I convince of the necessity to create
conditions under which an Indian will be a better American,
a better Canadian by being a good Indian.
LORNA I guess, um, that’s another issue. I um, the only way
that we can be better Canadians through being a good Indian,
for me to be able to be a good Canadian by being a good
St’at’yemc can only exist when, um, the Canadians too, can
say, I can be a better Canadian because I can accept, um,
the way of the world view of the St’at’yemc or the Navaho.
You see it can’t only be ...
SR 17 - PAGE
The Mind of a Child
Face to Face Media Ltd.
SR 17 - LORNA WILLIAMS AND REUVEN FEUERSTEIN
REUVEN Absolutely.
LORNA ... in one direction.
REUVEN I will tell you, this is one of the things in which I,
which I have already ... the, there are two forces in the
process of belonging. There are two forces. There are
centrifugal forces and centripetal forces. The centrifugal
forces tend to have the individual thrown out of the center
of its existence. And the centripetal is the one which
makes the individual go in, become ins-, in the, in his
group and belonging to his group and this depends as well as
... it, uh, determines that, some of the conditions.
First of course, you have to have an ideology. You have to
have a belief system, you have to have a, a desire to
belong. But, this is not enough. If belonging to a
particular group is necessarily also belonging to a lower
socioeconomic disadvantaged group, then the centrifugal
forces will be ...
BEEP (SLATE NO: ____)
... those which will take over and the people will disband
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The Mind of a Child
Face to Face Media Ltd.
SR 17 - LORNA WILLIAMS AND REUVEN FEUERSTEIN
and will run away and they are running away ...
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Production material centres around a joint interview conducted with Lorna Wanosts’a7 Williams and Reuven Feuerstein in Shoresh, Isreal.
In tape 1, Wanosts’a7 and Feuerstein discuss how she first came to learn of his work while teaching at Ts̓zil Community School; Feuerstein’s conceptualizations of cultural difference and cultural deprivation; the need for respect of cultural differences without devaluing other groups; and Feuerstein’s idea of the forces of belonging.
In tape 2, Wanosts’a7 and Feuerstein discuss Wanosts’a7’s experience first coming to Israel for Feuerstein’s international summer workshop; Instrumental Enrichment (FIE); more on cultural difference and cultural deprivation; mediated learning experience and cognitive testing; and the importance of emotional engagement in education, which includes a reflection by Feuerstein’s on his work with children of the Holocaust.
In tape 3, Feuerstein discusses the BBC documentary “The Transformers: Out of the Wilderness” created about his work; and the responsibilities of parents in providing mediation, including the importance of Wanosts’a7’s work in re-empowering parents in that role.
The filmed segments of the interview run from 12:29 on tape 1, and continue until 14:48 on tape 3. 12:30 on tape 3 to the end of the interview are silent.
Additional sequences can be found proceeding and following the interview, including the Old City of Jerusalem; the Western Wall; Shoresh; and the Neve Carmel caravan site in Haifa. Much of this material does not have corresponding audio.