Residential Schools : A National Crime - Listening to the Victims' Sad Stories

As a teacher in the public school system in Ontario, I was required to follow the Ontario Curriculum and  teach an unit on the Native Peoples of Canada to my elementary school students.

I knew very little about aboriginal peoples and their history at the time, therefore, I did some research on my own before teaching the lessons to my students.

Today, along with my team mates, we heard the true stories and experiences of our aboriginal people who went through the notorious Residential School System when they were children themselves.

What a revelation and shock it was to us all! In my mind, I always thought the residential school was the government's way of making sure that aboriginal children received a good Canadian education. Nothing more than that. How wrong was I!

Little did we know that the Residential School Policy was part of John A. McDonald's - Canada's first Prime Minister, Nation Building Plan which was to isolate aboriginal children from their parents and to assimilate them, a quick way to get rid of " the Indian problem."

Under this Residential School policy, the Indian Agent went into communities, rounded up all the aboriginal children (aged seven to fourteen) and removed them forcibly from their parents, and their community. Native parents had no say in what was happening to them and what was taught to their children. Parents would face jail term if they refused to send their children to Residential School.

A Residential School in northern Alberta 

Native children were treated differently from non native children.  They were denied of their language and culture.  Aboriginal children were subjected to a different culture while their own culture was demeaned and ridiculed.

 They were neglected, punished and beaten for speaking their own mother tongue. Many were abused physically and sexually.  Some of the stories we heard from  Residential School survivors brought tears to our eyes:

Story 1 – At the residential School, porridge was served to the students every day throughout the year. Everyday the students were expected to finish their bowl of porridge. A little girl did not want to eat it, the person in charge slapped her hard on her face and forced her to finish her porridge. The girl did eat it reluctantly. But later on she threw up the porridge she ate, the person in charge forced her to lick up the vomited food.

Story 2 – One of the Residential Schools in British Columbia was built with an apple orchard in the back of the school. The children did not have enough to eat and they were always hungry. So they went outside to pick up some apples fallen on the ground to eat, but they were forbidden to do so and were told to drop the apples on the ground.  However, being hungry, these children thought of other ways to smuggle the apples in their pants.  So they learned how to steal food being in the Residential School.

We took turn  sharing our comments and about what we had learned

Story 3 – Being hungry all the time, aboriginal children came up with creative ways to find food. They played the marble game with each other.

Whoever won the game got marbles from their peers. As a result, they learned to use the marbles as a form of currency to buy food from each other, e.g. five marbles for a piece of bread, ten marbles for something else. So the Residential School taught the children how to steal food and how to gamble for food to fill their hunger!

Dr. Peter Bryce visited thirty five Residential  Schools at the time. He found the condition so deplorable that he resigned from his work with the government and wrote a book titled - A National Crime: The Canadian Government and the Residential School System  (  1999)

 

With 42% of aboriginal children died  due to their Residential School experience, what parents would send their children to school?

We found these stories and incidents shocking beyond belief. As an educator all my life, I could not imagine anyone responsible for teaching and taking care of children could be so cruel to the little innocent ones?

At the end of the presentation, we were asked to express how we felt and what we had learned. When it was my turn to share and dialogue in the circle, I could not hold back my tears and expressed my sorrow and apology to the aboriginal people among us.

The Residential School System existed over a hundred years; it was the darkest chapter in our Canadian history. The stories of the first nation people who suffered at the hands of our government need to be told and heard!

R.T.

Alberta

May, 2016