The Sustainable Development of Indigenous Peoples’ Education in Taiwan

Abstract

Exclusive geography and unique history nurtured various tribal groups in Taiwan. There are 14 kinds of aboriginal tribes recognized at present. All tribal groups have histories about long-time living on the land and form remarkable culture connected closely with the environment. However, the aborigines in Taiwan are facing the problem of fast modernization which causes culture outflow. Additionally, the mainstream environmental education from the Western world has absented the values from the aboriginal groups. Study of the ecology knowledge and skills of aboriginal culture can not only make more people understand the friendly ways to treat the environment but also enable the aborigines to retrieve hopes from the invisible inheritance of ecology wisdom. This chapter will introduce in a sequence of the uniqueness of Taiwan’s aborigines’ ecological wisdom and behaviors, cases of utilizing aborigines’ wisdom in teaching, and examples from Taiwan for the references of developing sustainable education.