Residential School History

The era of residential schools in Canada was a dark period in time, but it especially affected the relationship between the country and its Aboriginal population. The quote above was said by Justice Murray Sinclair, who, over a period of six years listen to over 7000 statements of survivors of residential schools so as to form the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada's Call to Action. To a great extent, I believe that the Call to Action should be followed through. In my opinion, the main focus should be the section's “Language and Culture,” “Health,” and “Justice.”

Theodore Fontaine is one of the thousands of young aboriginal peoples who were subjected through the early Canadian system of the Indian residential schools, was physically tortured. Originally speaking Ojibwe, Theodore relates the encounters of a young man deprived of his culture and parents, who were taken away from him at the age of seven, during which he would no longer be free to choose what to say, how to say it, with whom to live and even what culture to embrace. Theodore would then spend the next twelve years undoing what had been done to him since birth, and the rest of his life attempting a reversal of his elementary education culture shock, traumatization, and indoctrination of ethnicity and Canadian supremacy. Out of these experiences, he wrote the “Broken Circle: The Dark Legacy of Indian Residential Schools-A Memoir” and in this review, I considered the Heritage House Publishing Company Ltd publication.

During the 19th century the Canadian government established residential schools under the claim that Aboriginal culture is hindering them from becoming functional members of society. It was stated that the children will have a better chance of success once they have been Christianised and assimilated into the mainstream Canadian culture. (CBC, 2014) In the film Education as We See It, some Aboriginals were interviewed about their own experiences in residential schools. When examining the general topic of the film, conflict theory is the best paradigm that will assist in understanding the social implications of residential schools. The film can also be illustrated by many sociological concepts such as agents of socialization, class

Residential School’s were introduced back in the 1870’s, they were made to change the way native children spoke their languages and how they viewed their cultures. The residential school system in Canada was operated by the government, where the native children were aggressively forced away from their loved ones to participate in these schools (1000 Conversations). The government had a concept, where they can modernize the native children, aged of three to eighteen and extinguish the aboriginal culture. In the twentieth century the Canadian Public School’s had arrived and had improved treatments than residential schools. In Contrast, the treatments within these schools were both different, whereas Canadian public school students had more freedom than residential school students because children were taken away from their families. However, the treatment in these schools were different and some what similar. Even though Residential schools and Canadian Public schools were similar in some form, there were numerous amounts of differences in how the children were taught, how they were treated and how their living conditions were like throughout these schools.

“Where are they taking me, mom?! Help!” These were the screams of an Aboriginal child when he was dragged to a car that drove him away from his family. Aboriginal kids were forcefully abducted and placed at poorly built and equipped residential schools. Residential schools are a network of boarding schools for Indigenous peoples. Like a disease, these schools spread so fast on Canadian land. They were every Indigenous child’s nightmare. Kids who attended were traumatized due to the mental, physical, and sexual abuse they suffered. Canadians felt superior to Aboriginals which lead them to use their power excessively to civilize these communities. This issue is considered to be one of the darkest chapters in Canadian history. It has a significant impact on Aboriginal communities. Indians suffered a loss of culture and identity. This issue violates various human rights such as; Freedom of language, freedom of culture and religion, freedom of choice, and the freedom of safety and health. The two groups in this controversy are the aggressors; Canadian government, and it’s churches, and the victims; the aboriginals. The question is, is the Canadian government doing enough to make it up to those who suffered the ill effects of residential schools?

Knockwood explains the enforcement of residential ideologies as a “combination of physical intimidation and psychological manipulation which produced terror and confusion” (12). The premise of residential schools was to strip Indigenous children from their culture and Indigenous identity, forcing them to only speak English, or face severe consequences. Despite the government and churches best efforts, many Indigenous children still maintained their cultural roots and kept their language while at home. This governmental need for assimilation has had lasting impacts far beyond the scope of active residential schools. Neeganagwedgin notes, “while the schools may be physically closed, the legacy lingers” (34). Beyond this, she urges, present-day institutions still function in a way that continues to undermine and systematically deny, “Indigenous peoples their inherent rights as First Peoples” (Neeganagwedgin 34); such as the justice system, child welfare and the education systems.

The Aboriginal peoples of Canada had gone through many situations to get to where they are today with their education system. Pain, sorrow, doubt, and hope are all feelings brought to mind when thinking about the history and the future of Aboriginal education. By taking a look at the past, anyone can see that the right to education for Aboriginal peoples has been fought about as early as the 1870s. This is still is a pressing issue today. Elder teachings, residential, reserve and post-secondary schools have all been concerning events of the past as well as the present. Though education has improved for the Aboriginal peoples of Canada, there are still many concerns and needs of reconciliation for the past to improve the future.

Residential schools in Canada were present for over 100 years and were created by the government to eliminate the Indigenous culture. These schools successfully separated families while creating huge cultural barriers between children and their Native culture (COHA, 2011). These children were forcibly removed from their families and taken to residential schools because Canadians saw Indigenous peoples as “backwards” or “savage” (COHA, 2011). They also believed that they were inferior to Natives and that these schools would help “civilize” aboriginals by replacing their Native traits with Western values (COHA, 2011).

After days, months, years of being physically and sexually abused, shamed, bullied, breaking ties with their families and having their identity stripped because they were “different”; let anxiety and depression start to get ahold of them. “Separated from their parents, they grew up knowing neither respect nor affection. A school system that mocked and suppressed their families’ cultures and traditions, destroyed their sense of self-worth.”(TRC Introduction). This introduces the idea of depression and anxiety beginning to unfold as words can not explain the pain and hurting they went through. “Children who had been bullied and abused, carried a burden of shame and anger for the rest of their lives. Overwhelmed by this legacy, many succumbed to despair and depression. Countless lives were lost to alcohol and drugs.”(TRC Introduction). There is no doubt that the Canadian government was racist towards the First Nation Peoples. The racism lead to the school system and the Survivors depression and anxiety. “The residential school environment was deeply racist. It presumed the intellectual inferiority of the children and it demeaned Aboriginal culture, language and parenting. The students were treated as if they were prisoners who required strict discipline simply because they were Aboriginal.”(TRC 227). Racism and the feeling of anger

In the Indigenous community, when the community is faced with a trauma, it takes seven generations for the community to heal (Trimble, 2015). People may underestimate how oppressed and how much suffering the Indigenous communities had to struggle with, and continue to struggle with these issues today. We may underestimate how severe the situation is because many of us were not taught much about the impact of colonization on the Indigenous communities in school. There are many myths people may have concerning Indigenous life experiences, particularly schooling. To address these myths, I would begin by giving a brief history of residential schools. I would then analyze how residential schools have impacted the indigenous community and how they continue to affect them today. I would also mention the current issues children on reserves are facing today regarding school. Lastly, I would mention some of the progress that has been made. I will use the work of Sefa Dei to demonstrate the importance of community in education regarding the Indigenous people.

Charlie Angus was elected as a Member of Parliament in 2004, a role which took him to the Forgotten Children of Attawapiskat. It was his experiences prompted him to write his book, Children of the Broken Treaty: Canada’s Lost Promise and one Girl’s Dream, which tells the story of Indigenous persons of Canada’s struggles, including treaty rights, residential schools, as well as the fight for education and safe housing. The book provides a challenge to many common assumptions, and it also explores many themes which are used to explain the events which have shaped Canadian culture and policies. Angus begins his book by touching on some of the original treaties signed between the first Canadian government and the members of the bands that are indigenous to the land. One of these was Treaty 9, which promised education for Indigenous children. The book then developed into the foundation of residential schools, and the horrors that are endured there. In addition to the horrendous amounts of verbal, physical and sexual abuse which took place in these schools, the students who attended these institutions faced the mass genocide of their culture, as the unspoken purpose of these schools was “to kill the Indian in the child” (Angus, 2015, p. 14). The beginning of the book, while very dark, provides an honest introduction to some of the themes that can be spotted throughout the book, and history itself. The three themes that primarily stood out to me as a reader were: cultural

In the nineteenth century, the government of Canada felt it had an obligation to the nations people to educate the Indigenous population of the country. The federal government sought to pursue this task through the development of residential schools. Under this system, framed by the Davin Report, Congregations of Christian missionaries were responsible for providing compulsory education to Indigenous children within governmentally constructed schools. They were charged with assimilating these children into mainstream culture and convert them into members of “civilized society”. The resulting actions on part of the Canadian government and acting missionaries have caused detrimental psychological and emotional trauma to survivors of these residential schools; trauma that has crossed intergenerational boundaries since the induction of the system. The direct outcomes of the residential school system have resulted in a form of trauma with cross-generational effects among contemporary Indigenous societies, known as historical trauma.

Aboriginal people in Canada are the native peoples in North America within the boundaries of present-day Canada. In the 1880’s there was a start of residential schools which took Aboriginal kids from their family to schools to learn the Roman Catholics way of culture and not their own. In residential schools Aboriginal languages were forbidden in most operations of the school, Aboriginal ways were abolished and the Euro-Canadian manner was held out as superior. Aboriginal’s residential schools are careless, there were mental and physical abuse, Aboriginals losing their culture and the after effects of residential schools.

Teaching residential school in a public-school system is a challenging topic. For the most part, non-indigenous people are not aware of the magnitude of the impacts of this legacy on Canadian society. Understand the importance of teaching Residential school in the public systems is a way to bridge our relationships and move towards reconciliation. For this to succeed, non-indigenous teachers, administrators need to educator themselves about the Residential school system. My 2016-2017 ARPL discusses Residential school in the classroom, can the legacy of Residential school be taught in the classroom, what is reconciliation, bridging the gap between our relationship with non-indigenous people, and finally the possibility of exploring racism as a tool to bridge these gaps.

This textbook has multiple parts to it, one being Residential Schools. The text talks about the two types of residential schools and how the industrial schools were eventually closed over time due to the government saying it was costing too much since the people there were not learning much more than they would at the boarding schools. It goes into some detail as to what was being taught at these schools as well. The text goes on about how people believed that the schools would help them conform and were indeed helping to assimilate them into the culture they wanted them molded into. Which then goes onto talk about when they were eventually sent back home they did not know how to live properly in an Aboriginal community when they had been taught