Residential School Question Essay, Research Paper

The Residential school system in Canada was a system devoted to providing a disciplined based ideal that promoted the rejection of the aboriginal culture in favor of the then dominant white European population. The teaching strategies that were encouraged ranged from pulling children as young as six away from their parents to mental, physical and sexual abuse. The Residential schools were run by a variety of participating church organizations, which received funding from the Canadian government. The funding was based on a per aboriginal basis therefore it was in the best interests of the churches to enroll as many aboriginal students as possible. The schools were run in almost every province in Canada from 1860-1884 and claimed to be promoting religious and cultural assimilation. However, the cruelty that was experienced by many young aboriginals in the residential schools accentuated the differences between the aboriginal societies and the European dominant society making complete assimilation impossible.

The process of assimilation of aboriginals in Canada was doomed to fail because the missionaries and the federal government created a counter productive atmosphere from which they were to achieve their goal of assimilation. Looking back at the history of the Residential school system in Canada, we can see the production of an alienated population because the tragedies that took place at the schools. Of the many tragedies that took place I want to focus on two important issues. First, a lot of aboriginals were taught to be ashamed of their own culture and belief system in order to promote the new one that was to be given to them. Secondly, many students were taken away from their families at a young age and subjected mental, physical and sexual abuse. In presenting my research paper I m going to discuss the importance of recognizing that the residential school system is a part of our history and needs to be addressed when developing teaching strategies to those students who may have been affected by their parents or grandparents attending a residential school.

It is J.R. Miller s (1996) research into the residential school question that peaked my interest in this topic. The question of one that is very significant to how many natives in Canada are perceived now. It is my contention that the alienation of young natives at residential schools in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries created many of the problems that face young natives in the educational process today. Today, many aboriginal students find themselves on the outside looking in at the educational process because there is not a curriculum that they fit into (Full Day Programs for Native Learners, 1990).

The establishment of the residential schools similar to William Duncan s Methodist Missionary School at Metlakatla (pp.91-93) was part of the transition to moving Canada from a hunter-gatherer society to a more western commercialized structure. The aboriginals following the 1846 conference at Orilla faced the pressure of the westernized world bearing down on them. Miller states,

“the Indian was now a liability to people who wished to reduce the forests to tidy farms, tame the rivers by means of canals to haul their goods, and develop manufacturing. In all these areas the Indian was as much an obstacle as the pine forest that had to be reduced to make the farms, furnish the locks, and, later, supply the ties of the railway (pp.62-3).

Through this belief system government began to subsidize churches willing to correct the Indian problem. Churches like the Roman Catholics, Protestant and Methodists sent missionaries out into rural areas in Canada to set up boarding schools that would be run to correct wildness of the Indian and make them more adaptable to the westernized culture. However the steps to which these missionaries sometimes took to satisfy enrollment in their schools make the process difficult.

The societal pressures to fit into the westernized culture created a niche for the residential school. Many Aboriginal families encouraged their children to go to these schools to gain the knowledge of the white man. It was believed by many Aboriginal families that in order for them to survive as a group they must learn the white man s language and gain skills that would make them employable in the white man s world . However, there were many who resisted following the missionaries ideals of sending their children off to school because they needed them to work to ensure the family would not starve. There were many cases of parents who were bribed by missionaries for their children in order to meet their enrollment level to secure funding for their school. In addition some missionaries went as far as to kidnap children. The desperate survival of their own livelihood was desperately taken out on many aboriginal families. The irony of these tragedies is these people are supposed to be of the highest moral standing and they were splitting up families and committing crimes, which would be not acceptable in the dominant society. However, they justify their actions as acts of god by divine people attempting to bring morals to culture group who lack the ability to do it themselves. Double standards similar taught to many aboriginal children during their stays at residential schools are lessons that lessons that are being taught to their children today.

The Residential school system was a system in Canada devoted to providing a disciplined-based ideal that promoted the rejection of the aboriginal culture in favor of the then dominant white European population. The teaching strategies that were encouraged by these schools ranged from pulling children as young as six away from their parents to poor meals, half-day education, and ridicule about themselves and their family. The Residential schools were run by many church organizations, which received funding from the Canadian government. The Catholic, Anglican, and Methodist churches are examples of some of the bigger church organizations that had residential schools (Miller, 1996). All students were required to follow strict rules set in place by the church missionaries running the school and faced cruel discipline if they did not comply to them. The federal government was suppose to run checks periodically on these schools to see how they were being run but their presence was rarely felt at many of the schools. Thus, neglecting their responsibilities to the aboriginal community under the law and creating a population distrustful of government.

Native students as young as five and six were placed in these schools and expected to flourish in their new surroundings without ever having been exposed to the church before (Haig-Brown, p.54). How were these children expected to adapt to a new setting, new rules, a new belief system and a new language without any struggle? Wouldn t one think that the support network of a family member would be necessary for them to adapt to their new surroundings? These questions make it even more unbelievable to understand how many students experienced sexual abuse at the hands of the people that were responsible to turning them into citizens that were to be expected to fit into the dominant culture. An example of this pattern of abuse is Hubert O Conner who was principal at the St. Joseph s school at Williams Lake, British Columbia in the 1960s. O Conner, an Oblate was charged with sexual misconduct in 1992 of underage female students and workers at the school after many students and former workers came forward to break their silence (Miller, 331-2).

The missionaries often reinforced aboriginal inequality through demeaning statements about how inhuman their families were. Mental and physical barrages similar to these aimed at knocking down their sense self-esteem, making them easier to brainwash them about their (Haig-Brown, 59). In addition churches went to great lengths to avoid visits from the student s family through the building schools far away from reservation. Thus, making it difficult for any familial influence on the students. Is it conceivable that a plan to better a population has its roots in distancing a portion of the population from their cultural roots in hopes of assimilating them completely to another culture? My answer to this is a firm no. A student needs a reference point from they are to begin learn something. Therefore, if you cannot relate a new idea to something that they have learned before then it is hopeless that you are teaching them something that they will value. In my opinion anything that is not learned through this process is a form of brainwash because students are retaining something new purely through repetition and retention without the understanding of why this occurs (Haig-Brown).

The underlining question is how do we educate students who may feel alienated by a system that has been so atrocious to them in the past? It is my belief that Canada is a product of its history. Thus, I believe educators should recognize the possible struggles many families may have had in their education. Equality is not Equity therefore we cannot take for granted that every student that we come across will be of a white European background and will be only interested in learning more about themselves. Our students will come from many different backgrounds. Therefore it is important to adopt a perspective in the classroom that reflects the cultural make-up of your classroom and society. The book Full Day Programs for Native Learners: Integrated themes outlines many different approaches to integrating the curriculum outlined by the Integrated Resource Package. It focuses on the uniqueness of the various aboriginal communities in the province and encourages students to learn from their own cultural perspective. The integration of the aboriginal students social world into their educational studies provides students with a frame of reference from where they have a basis to understanding their own cultural world in different educational disciplines.

Eleanor Bourke (1993) outlines the following qualities that are deemed essential when teaching in communities where aboriginals are the dominant cultural group (p.51):

+ Personal qualities, which include a sense of responsibility, flexibility and tolerance and respect for cultural diversity

+ Personal and professional maturity to deal with diverse situations e.g. teaching in an Aboriginal community or small town

+ Being able to develop relationships with Aboriginal parents

+ Being capable of living in a remote community

+ Being aware of what teacher/schools have represented historically for Aboriginal people in the past

+ An awareness that teachers are seen as representatives of their own cultural group

Through the development of the above characteristics teachers will be better able to cope with understandings of students who have difficulty facing their educational future because of their family or friends previous educational experiences. Along with these previous experiences come behaviors like alcoholism, suicide and sexual abuse that have come to consume many aboriginal families who have gone through the residential school experience (Jaine, 31-4).

Residential schools in their attempt to create an assimilated society created a group within Canadian society that was raped of their culture (Harel, video-recording) and distanced from the rest of society. I hesitate to approach this subject with anything but caution because of how personal the attack was on the aboriginal persons involved and on the various aboriginal cultures in Canada. As a future teacher I want to make students as comfortable inside the classroom and outside the classroom that I can. Therefore it is important for me to understand as many perspectives that may encounter any number of my future students. I want to be thought of, as a fun teacher that is respectful of and to all his students needs.

To understand the scope of emotional problems the residential school system created through is existence is impossible. However it is not impossible to recognize that many aboriginal children are coming into the classroom with a range of emotional problems stemming from familial stories of abuse, alcoholism, drug use and suicide. The wide range of emotional problems could have been prevented had the decision to assimilate young aboriginals through the residential school system had not been made. The importance of recognizing this and doing something about it is another story all together. Teachers of aboriginal students must adapt a curriculum for their class, where students can learn about their own culture and history in relation to the core curriculum classes taught to many other students. The ability to create a positive place for all aboriginal students is to understand each person s spirit and be willing to help rid the demons that posses it.