Dear All:

Hope this email finds all of you well. Thanks for inviting me to "GTA-PeDAGoG" mailing list. I am an Honorary member of the ICCA Consortium. It was my great honor to complete the both English summary and Chinese version of “Analysis on ICCAs in the Region of Xinjiang” some years ago. They are in the following links below. I received my PhD in Anthropology in 2012. Now, I am engaged in teaching and research at College of Staten Island of the City University of New York.

https://www.iccaconsortium.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/ICCAs-in-Xinjiang-en.pdf

https://www.iccaconsortium.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/ICCAs-in-Xinjiang-ch.pdf

I built a website https://www.pedagogism.com This is a nonprofit social networking website for educators, students, parents and general public to share their pedagogies and concerns on education. It aims to promote overall educational success for all and serve the public interests. On this website, two of the forums categories that I create are “Education for Sustainable Development Forums” and “Indigenous Education Forums”. It aims to raise public awareness of the importance of education for sustainable development and indigenous education, and also to encourage public participation in the debate on this topic, thereby promoting sustainable development and indigenous cultures, natural rights from an educational perspective. Under the “Indigenous Education Forums”, I have also created " Indigenous and Community Conserved Areas (ICCAs) Forum" to make ICCAs and its importance more widely known.

As a scholar of Anthropology and Sociology, I also pay close attention to the research of Indigenous People. I have been committed to promoting the economic, cultural and social development research of the indigenous peoples.  In the study, I found that not only do indigenous students face many challenges in their study, but also the whole education system lacks relevant courses on aboriginal culture, such as teaching in aboriginal languages, teaching on aboriginal cultural heritage, history and tradition, etc.  The lack of this kind of education has further exacerbated the general public’s lack of understanding of aboriginal culture. According to relevant research, every 14 days an aboriginal language disappears from the earth, which is not only the death of language but also the end of culture.  We lack a common platform for communication, so on the website I have set up “Indigenous Education “Forms. One of the important purposes is to arouse public attention to the history, language, culture and nature protection of indigenous people by participating online forums or group discussions, at the same time, it is also aimed at promoting the education department to fully integrate indigenous education into different stages of education in order to achieve the goal of protecting the indigenous culture from the public basis.

With the progress of human civilization, anthropocentrism is continuously destroying the sustainable development of mankind. This kind of destructive behavior includes excessive consumption of natural and animal resources, social inequality, improper waste management, global poverty, etc. Although many scholars, government agencies, non-profit organizations and other agencies have invested a lot of energy to study the coping strategies or formulate relevant policies, the effect is not as we wish.  What are the underlying reasons behind this?  The lack of sustainable education in our modern education system is an important reason, and sustainable education should run through every stage of education. It should have the same status as basic courses and become a compulsory subject in education. This is an important reason for this website to set up “Education for Sustainable Development” forums. It is hoped that through active discussions of the general public, the all-round development of sustainable education will be promoted.

I think the “Education for Sustainable Development Forums” and “Indigenous Education Forums” is important for promoting sustainability and the protection of the cultural and natural rights of indigenous people. It would be very important to get more people involved. This website is easy to use and you are able to create unlimited social groups and forum discussions, comment as well as submit post. The functions include Member Profile, Social Groups, Forum Discussion, Private Messaging, Private Community, User Invites, Network Search, Activity Feeds, Album and Media, Events, Notifications, Activity Privacy Options and more.

Welcome to use the two forums on this website as the platform to promote the development of sustainable and indigenous education. In the meantime, if you think there are some topics worth setting up as new forums category or subforums, thanks for letting me know and I would like to discuss it with you.

I found “PeDaGoG” is a very important initiative. Do you want me to set up a Forum under the “Education For Sustainable Development” Forums” or a new Forum category called "PeDaGoG Forums". For the latter, it can include more sub-forums under the "PeDaGoG Forums". If it is the latter, please let me know the "Subforums" titles that you want. I think this can be a great base for the "PeDaGoG" group to discuss online. Through it, more people across the world will get to know "PeDaGoG" as well. I am looking forward to hearing from your ideas.

For the website, please visit https://www.pedagogism.com

About me, please visit https://www.yuxinhou.com

If you have any issues with viewing the website or other questions, thanks for letting me know.

Best,

Yuxin Hou