Interview · South Dakota · Whitney Rencountre · OSEU 4
Themes: Kinship & family, Education & learning, Healing & resilience, Values & generosity, Culture & continuity, Community & responsibility, Listening & observation, Children & young people, Intergenerational learning
Learn About questions
What are kinship rules and in what ways did they promote balance in the community?
What were roles that were part of a traditional Lakota community?
How did the influx of settlers impact the roles of the community?
How did watching help shape the roles of children and how has that changed?
In what ways does trauma impact the understanding of kinship?
Learn From questions
What defines my place in my family? Who helps me know my place?
What roles are present in my immediate family that guide our interactions with one another? How about my extended family?
How does my role in my family change over time? Or does it? Who taught me my role?
Have I experienced trauma in my life that caused some understanding of kinship to be lost? Is it possible to regain that understanding? How?
Transcripts
Showing Rather Than Telling - Whitney Rencountre - OSEU #4
Watch this interview on YouTubeYeah, kinship rules, you know, once again, they were established, they were set up in a way that, you know, really helped our society have a flow in terms of, you know, the balance was there. The balance of everyday life, everyone knew their role, we knew what needed to be done, and we never spent time questioning why those needed to be done. It was just a simple, but great way of life that we lived.
And then the come of settlers and Christopher Columbus and, you know, all of this that came, you know, in Custer, all of these experiences have really changed our kinship roles to now adjusting to today's society, where I would say there's a lack of really clearly defined roles for our children to follow.
I mean, we talk about role models, we talk about individuals to kind of lead the way, but if we don't have the tools ourselves to really establish a society where we can foster our traditional kinship values and roles that we had, it really makes it difficult. So we almost have to go to that place, we have to challenge ourselves as teachers, as educators, as parents, to really work on ourselves personally, you know, to not live in a way where you have addictions, where you have behaviors, where you're not allowing students to grow.
I think so much over time, a long time ago our grandparents and our parents spent time helping students learn tools by watching, but nowadays our role is so, there's such a challenge that our grandmothers, our grandfathers spend more time trying to control the future of our grandchildren.
Our parents spend so much time telling the students, telling our kiddos what not to do, rather than showing them what to do, because our students are so in a place where they don't have the basic tools, you know, available to them and they're setting their own lives in their daily, you know, whether it's trauma or whether it's other experiences they may have had. And so if we could get to that place and that point within ourselves, it starts with us as individuals.
And so as a teacher, as a person, those are the things that we have to utilize, you know, and develop those tools for ourselves first.
Resource text
OSEU 4: INTERVIEW WITH WHITNEY RENCOUNTRE
“Sea WolLakota Project
From the current WoLakota source page:
Showing Rather Than Telling
Whitney Rencountre
Transcript
(deep listening, information)
(deep listening, information)
Some indexed text was extracted from scanned material. Check the original source for exact wording and spelling.
Source materials
Supplied transcript document. Text preserved as supplied; spellings and transcription uncertainties have not been corrected.
Additional source transcripts
Showing Rather Than Telling
Showing Rather Than Telling - Whitney Rencountre -
OSEU #4
Yeah, kinship rules, you know, once again, they were established, they were set up in a
way that, you know, really helped our society have a flow in terms of, you know, the
balance was there. The balance of everyday life, everyone knew their role, we knew
what needed to be done, and we never spent time questioning why those needed to be
done. It was just a simple, but great way of life that we lived.
And then the come of settlers and Christopher Columbus and, you know, all of this that
came, you know, in Custer, all of these experiences have really changed our kinship
roles to now adjusting to today's society, where I would say there's a lack of really
clearly defined roles for our children to follow.
I mean, we talk about role models, we talk about individuals to kind of lead the way, but
if we don't have the tools ourselves to really establish a society where we can foster our
traditional kinship values and roles that we had, it really makes it difficult. So we almost
have to go to that place, we have to challenge ourselves as teachers, as educators, as
parents, to really work on ourselves personally, you know, to not live in a way where you
have addictions, where you have behaviors, where you're not allowing students to grow.
I think so much over time, a long time ago our grandparents and our parents spent time
helping students learn tools by watching, but nowadays our role is so, there's such a
challenge that our grandmothers, our grandfathers spend more time trying to control the
future of our grandchildren.
Our parents spend so much time telling the students, telling our kiddos what not to do,
rather than showing them what to do, because our students are so in a place where
they don't have the basic tools, you know, available to them and they're setting their
own lives in their daily, you know, whether it's trauma or whether it's other experiences
they may have had. And so if we could get to that place and that point within ourselves,
it starts with us as individuals.
And so as a teacher, as a person, those are the things that we have to utilize, you know,
and develop those tools for ourselves first.