Rachel Truscott
Devon Code
COMM80-4
November 27th, 2014
The Extremes of Residential Schools
The purpose of residential schools enforced from 1920 to 1996 under the Indian act was to “kill the Indian in the child” (Hanson, 2006). The system was brought into North American by Europeans and Catholics and was majorly run by nuns. The Europeans believed that aboriginal people needed to become more civilized, influencing them with their culture. This is when Nicholas Flood Davin, who was studying industrial school systems in the United states at the time recommended that Canadian aboriginal children needed to be taught through “aggressive civilization” (Hanson, 2006). Davin believed that to take the Indian out of the child it had to
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After Davin had wrote his report on “Industrial Schools for Indians and half breeds” (Hanson, 2006) children were forced to attend these schools. Parents who resigned the participation of there children were sent to prison. This was the beginning of the “sixties scoop” where children were literally scooped up from their aboriginal villages and placed in a residential school. Life in residential schools was not as easy as children thought, students were to dispose of all origins and culture, and become catholic. The schools way of eliminating culture was to cut the hair of all students and to dress in a uniform. Children were also not allowed to speak in any languages besides English unless they wanted to be severely punished. Students would learn jobs that were typically sexist for woman and men; woman being taught domestic, household jobs, while men were taught the trades regardless of what they wanted to become (Hanson, 2006). Students would only reach an education of grade 5 before they were released back to their homes, leaving most students traumatized only to enter another educational …show more content…
Students as young as 3 would be sent off to schools where they would be beaten and sexually abused as a punishment for misbehaving. Emotionally, students were traumatized witnessing other students, friends and siblings beaten sometimes to death. Even though the government funded the schools, many still lacked of health requirements that were necessary resulting in overcrowding, poor sanitation and poor food quality, often leading to death. Studies show that 24 percent of children who were put into residential schools died and up to 75 percent of children died after being sent home due to illness and/or completing the residential schooling. Schools started off with as many as 150,000 students with only 80,000 surviving today (Truth and Reconciliation, 2014). Even though residential schools are now closed aboriginal attendee’s still suffer, many induced with depression, PTS (post-traumatic stress), different forms of addiction, and even suicidal
From the 1870’s until the last school closed in 1996, at least 150,000 Indigenous children attended residential schools in Canada. More than 130 government mandated schools existed across the country. These schools were church administered, with the express purpose of forcibly removing Indigenous children from their native culture, in an effort to assimilate them into Euro-Canadian culture and thereby “kill the Indian in the child”. Countless families were torn apart as the Canadian government placed
Residential Schools were systems set in place by the Government of Canada and enforced by Christian churches as a way to approach the “issue” of the First Nations. They were used by the government to assimilate the Aboriginal children into European culture. It is significant that Canadians remember this time in history because it's not so far in the past. We see the repercussions to this day. This source shows the perspective of the Government, and supporters of the Government. On the other hand Aboriginal people may disagree, they are still greatly struggling with misfortune due to Residential Schools. The perspective shown in the source should be looked into considering the government's insufficient response to the legacies left behind by Residential Schools. For example we see higher prison rates, more drop outs, and family abuse more than most cultural groups in
Indian Residential Schools has been a major contributing factor towards the mistreatment and decreased standard of living for the First Nations people of Canada. Originally founded in the 1840’s and the last to close in 1996 the goal of Residential Schools was to assimilate First Nations people into Canadian society. The assimilation process consisted of the forced attendance (by Canadian law) for every Native, Metis, and Inuit child to attend the “boarding” schools. Residential Schools were ran by Christian, Catholic, and Anglican churches, the schools were also funded by the Canadian government’s Indian Affairs. Treatment students received while attending the schools was unbearable for the young children. After being taken and
In the past, Canada’s Aboriginal people’s culture was at stake and for it to resolve. The Residential Schools were established to help aboriginal children to not forget about their language and culture in the contemporary society. In 1931, there were about 80 schools in Canada. It was a total of 130 schools in every territory and province. In 1996, Residential schools in Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick closed all residential schools which led all the Aboriginals, Intuits, and Métis were forced to attend the schools.
Residential School (1931-1996) treated aboriginals unfairly and assumed that aboriginal culture is unable to adapt to a rapidly modernizing society. It was said that native children could be successful if they adapt to Christianity and speaking English or French. Native students were not encouraged to speak their own language
This act continued for more than a century. Aboriginal education was conceived with partially benign intentions, in order to help Aboriginal people adapt to life in a white-dominated country (MacDonald and Hudson). Indeed, many treaties contained provisions for government-funded on-reserve schools (MacDonald and Hudson). Aboriginal leaders like Chief Shingwauk intended the on-reserve schools to educate his people and prepare them for a better life (MacDonald and Hudson). The early focus on the benefits to Aboriginal people and the balance between Western and Aboriginal culture soon gave way to a far more coercive system, which included forced assimilation and cultural destruction. The majority of residential schools were located off-reserve and then children were separated from their
The residential school system became prominent in Canada after the passage of the Indian Act in 1876 and was funded by the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (“A History of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada”). The original goal of this school system was to educate First Nations children about Canadian tradition and Christianity, as the
These schools were created for the reason of teaching Aboriginal children the Canadian language and culture in the hope that they will become assimilated into it. Every Aboriginal child under the age of 16 will be forcibly removed from their homes and put into residential schools. Often if children spoke their own language or practiced their own cultural traditions they were punished physically and verbally. They would be abused and many students would deal with emotional damage for the rest of their lives. The death and disease factors also had a large impact on the Indian children, at least 4000 Aboriginal children died from tuberculosis and the spanish influenza. By the 1940s and 1950s, residential schools have restricted nutrients and dental care for multiple students creating an unhealthy lifestyle (The Canadian Encyclopedia "Residential Schools."The Canadian Encyclopedia. October 10, 2012. Accessed July 7,
The purpose of Canada 's residential schools was to assimilate First Nation peoples into mainstream Canadian Society, like the Indian Act. The Residential Schools damaged First Nation people because it disconnected the children from their history, language, family, and culture. Residential Schools taught children that their culture wasn 't worth preserving. Some legacies of Residential Schools include alcoholism, poverty, and increased chances of becoming a prostitute or abuser (physical, emotional, sexual, and psychological). Statistics prove that people who have been
Some other experiences children had were that they had to use toxic chemical to clean their hair and skin, lack of nutritious diet, served spoil food and small meals, sexual assault, forced labour in unsafe work conditions , and the list goes on, children do not recall any positive experiences while attending residential schools.
In reflecting on that Wab shared of his father’s experience in the residential school system, information gathered from the text, as well as my own prior knowledge, operated under various religious organizations, in tandem with the Government of Canada, residential schools were one of the methods used to assimilate Aboriginal children into white society (textbook). Tasked with the responsibility to “remove the Indian from the child” such was accomplished through whatever means necessary, whereby come the stories of physical and emotional abuse, in addition placing many children under experiments involving malnutrition (Erin discus). The consequences of such schooling then included, an increased number of generations growing up outside the family environment, these individuals no longer fitting into their Aboriginal communities, yet they are not accepted in
Although to most, Residential schools are considered a time of the past, the final residential school did not actually close until 1986, which means that many of our older generation of today’s Aboriginal communities are residential school survivors. The traumatizing effects of the schools had not only had a significant effect on the families directly involved, but also for generations to follow. According to the Manitoba Justice Institute, residential schools laid the foundation for the epidemic we see today of domestic abuse and violence against Aboriginal women and children.17 The high rates of domestic violence among Aboriginal families results in a vicious cycle of abuse and dysfunction over generations. The families directly affected were raised with no love, from there, the pain was carried down in many other forms and so forth. This brings me to the topic of my first notion, that education is the root of decolonization. I am certain of this because, from what I understand nothing is so persistent and forced into society more than education is. I am not concentrated strictly on schools, but the idea that we are constantly surrounded by many possible sources of knowledge. A young child first and foremost learns from its surroundings (its parents, siblings, media, etc...) and then usually put into a school for further education. How a child is developed mentally plays such a huge role in his or her life choices, and later on
Before the nineteenth century, the Aboriginal people had their own way of teaching the children in their community, through organic education. In addition to providing knowledge and skills, organic education kept their culture alive (Ravelli & Webber, 2013: pg. 237). This is because the Aboriginal children would also be taught about their culture and its customs. But the Europeans thought, “Canada’s First Nation peoples were in the way of the relentless onrush of capitalist and industrial expansion (Ravelli & Webber, 2013: pg. 238).” This is when the residential education system was established. Since the organic education was what made the Aboriginal culture
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).
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.