Terms and Indiginization

My take on math/scientific terminology is that it's important insofar that it allows us to easily have  discussions about specific subjects. Generally speaking, I would encourage students not to get hung up on terminology. Its only a tool to help us develop our thoughts. I strongly believe that a lot of our "thinking" is done outside of language. I know some people seem to think that they don't have a "thought" unless they're able to put it into words, but I would argue this is a shortsighted view on how all of our minds operate in reality. Language is a tool. The ways in which we think and feel are, more often than not, actually impossible to articulate with even close-to-perfect accuracy. I suppose Robin Wall Kimmerer feels similar, and she does a lovely job of hinting at this idea with a nice story of her own experiences with language. I do think that language and culture are inextricably linked, and language does indeed shape the ways in which we think. We are all guilty of falling into the trap of believing our thought processes are limited by our language. If I were smarter and had all the time in the world, I would learn as many languages as possible. I believe that would essentially expand my repertoire of patterns of thinking. More realistically though, I think its good to simply be mindful of the limitations of any language. As far as Indiginizing my own classroom... I'm not entirely sure what that means. But I am a strong supporter of the way Kimmerer describes thinking about inanimate objects. I would extend this beyond the natural world however. For instance, I consider my water bottle to be an old friend. We've been through so much together, and I would be so dehydrated without it. Like Kimmerer mentions, I think this is actually a really natural way for people to think, but it gets conditioned out of them. Another good example is shoes. I hate throwing out an old pair of shoes. It's just sad to me to let them go, and I often feel they need a proper burial ceremony or something (at least more effort on my part to fix them up). I suppose that along those lines, I would be open with my students about how I feel about things like water bottles and shoes.