Our Story
A group of us came together through our passion for learning our language so we could teach it to our children. In our own way we each realized that the only way to make a change was to do something about it. We spent more than a decade researching and investigating alternative models of education that better serves the holistic needs of children.
Everlasting Tree School Students
In 2010 a group of parents and teachers seeking a holistic, experiential education, founded The Everlasting Tree School. The first of it’s kind to deliver Kanyen’keha and Rotinonhsonni culture following a Waldorf Education template, we are an independent, alternative school located at Six Nations of the Grand River Territory, privately funded by donation.
We share a common belief that as Onkwehon:we we have inherited our language, culture and a way of life that enables us to be fully functional Kanyen’keha:ka.
We are concluding our 6th year of operations.
“We have defined culture as the whole way of life of a people. Language is the principal instrument by which culture is transmitted from one generation to another, by which members of a culture communicate meaning and make sense of their shared experience. Because language defines the world and experience in cultural terms, it literally shapes our way of perceiving — our world view.”
Royal Commission Report on Aboriginal Peoples
Everlasting Tree School classroom
The Future
A resurgence of renewed interest in revitalizing Kanyen’keha has grown among the younger generations thanks to the efforts of Onkwawenna Kentyohkwa & Six Nations Polytechnic. Graduates of these programs are also parents of young children whom they are actively teaching within their home.
For the first time in 3-4 generations, children at Six Nations are once again speaking their first words in Kanyen’keha.
Skaronhyase’ko:wa Tsyohterakentko:wa Tsi Yontaweya’tahkwa – The Everlasting Tree School is providing a home for these children and their parents who are striving to do their part to strengthen and revitalize Kanyen’keha at Six Nations.