ABSTRACT
The Turtle School at Onieda is a unique, tribally developed BIA grant school that promotes community and cultural values. The teachers, administrators, and community members have worked hard to incorporate Oneida life ways into the environment, structure, and ways of learning and teaching at the school. For example, the ideal that everyone is equal and that all are learners and teachers are fundamental to the practice of schooling. Because teachers see themselves as facilitators, they work to challenge individual students and provide them with the tools and time each student needs to develop their skills. At the same time, a fundamental principle of the school is that the students are challenged continually and trained to be responsible for their learning. A feature of this pedagogy is that because it builds self-esteem and the motivation for learning, the dialogue in the classes presses students to think more critically about current social issues and problems their people face. What they begin to learn is that there are many ways to view a problem and more than one way to address it. Critical, creative, and responsible thinking are the fruits of the Oneida school philosophy. This educational goal is essential to all the models presented in this volume.
