I would like to begin by providing a context that can be used to place my discussion about experiences at a remote school in the Northern Territory (NT) into perspective.

In the NT 53% of schools are located in remote areas and these cater for up to 23% of NT students (Combe, 2000). The NT has the highest proportion of Indigenous students enrolled in schools with 35.2% of the overall student population identifying as Indigenous Australian (Collins, 1999). The next closest state is Western Australia with an Indigenous student enrollment average of 5.1 %, this is compared with a national average of 3.2%.

This paper considers the comments made Indigenous adults returning to school about their earlier experiences at school. They were written by Indigenous people who have chosen to return to education in the Northern Territory after leaving school early. They reflect the variety of factors which contributed to their motivation to stay at school when younger, or to leave school early.

Fifty-two (52) Indigenous students wrote comments on their earlier school experiences. They came from all around Australia and ranged in age from late teens to early forties. What they experienced at different places and at different times was remarkably similar. It would seem overt discrimination was more prominent in times past and has become more subtle in recent times.

While there has been much debate (Christie et al., 1987; Eckermann, 1988; Kleinfield and Nelson, 1991; Gibson, 1993; Ulstrup, 1994; Guild, 1994; Nicholls et al., 1995) on the in-appropriateness of applying culturally descriptive ‘learning styles’ in meeting the educational needs of Indigenous students, the reality of the existence of individual life experiences of Indigenous Australians has often been overlooked. That omission diminishes the dominant role which socio-cultural considerations have taken in past colonising practices with the effects of those practices often having become transgenerational among individuals today. This paper attempts to move on from that debate, questioning the validity of a canon that could be accused of merely perpetuating colonial paradigms and failing to acknowledge the integrity of the individual. The importance of determining and establishing effective communication is the key in understanding, and catering for, differing educational approaches, in the past labelled teaching and learning ‘styles’. Consequently, cultural awareness which is inclusive of the diversity of Indigenous Australians is still necessary in opening and maintaining that communication between educational stakeholders in the school community.

While conducting research intended to explore the underlying thoughts and assumptions held by non-Indigenous teachers and policy makers involved in Aboriginal education I dug out my first book on Australian history which had been given when I was about seven years old. Titled Australia From the Beginning (Pownall, 1980), the book was written for children and was not a scholarly book. It surprised me, then, to find so many of my own understandings and assumptions about Aboriginal affairs and race relations in this book despite four years of what had seemed quite liberal education in Australian history.