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The Residential School System

The Residential School System
Children's dining room, Indian Residential School, Edmonton, Alberta. Between 1925-1936. United Church Archives, Toronto, From Mission to Partnership Collection. Residential Schools Two primary objectives of the residential school system were to remove and isolate children from the influence of their homes, families, traditions and cultures, and to assimilate them into the dominant culture. These objectives were based on the assumption Aboriginal cultures and spiritual beliefs were inferior and unequal. Prime Minister Stephen Harper, official apology, June 11, 2008 What was the Indian residential school system? The term residential schools refers to an extensive school system set up by the Canadian government and administered by churches that had the nominal objective of educating Aboriginal children but also the more damaging and equally explicit objectives of indoctrinating them into Euro-Canadian and Christian ways of living and assimilating them into mainstream Canadian society.

http://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/home/government-policy/the-residential-school-system.html

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"Sides differ over preservation of residential school": Six Nations Public Library-Digital Archive Sides differ over preservation of residential school MARIEVAL, Sask. (CP) - The symbolic significance of the last of Saskatchewan's original residential schools has sparked a feud between the former and current chiefs of the Cowessess First Nation. Former chief Terry Lavallee wants the Marieval school, built in 1897, preserved as a museum and a reminder of the physical and sexual abuse aboriginal students suffered at the church-run facilities. Current chief Terrence Pelletier says the building is a black mark on aboriginal history and should be torn down so a new $8-million school can be built on the site.

A Poor Education John Woods/CP The two schools sit a mere five kilometres apart as the crow flies, in a rural stretch of Manitoba about four hours west of Winnipeg. Their soccer teams compete every spring. Their students groan over many of the same textbooks. But as the road from Rossburn Collegiate to the Waywayseecappo reserve school runs down a hill into a lush valley, it also crosses an invisible jurisdictional line that led to an egregious gap between native and non-native students. Until about 18 months ago, a student in Waywayseecappo received about $7,300 in annual funding from the federal government, while a student at Rossburn Collegiate received about $10,500 from the provincial government.

Indian Residential Schools – Key Milestones The Government of Canada began to play a role in the development and administration of Indian Residential Schools in 1874. It operated nearly every school as a joint venture with various religious organizations including Anglican, Presbyterian, United and Roman Catholic churches. Indian Residential Schools recognized by Canada, and all parties to the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement (legal counsel for former students, legal counsel for the Churches, the Assembly of First Nations, other Aboriginal organizations), are those where children were placed in a residence for the purposes of education by, or under, the authority of the Government of Canada; and, where the Government of Canada was jointly responsible for the operation of the residence and care of the children resident therein. Some 150,000 Aboriginal children were removed and separated from their families and communities to attend residential schools.

Canadian Indian residential school system There has long been significant historiographical and popular controversy about the conditions experienced by students in the residential schools. While day schools for First Nations, Metis and Inuit children always far outnumbered residential schools, a new consensus emerged in the early 21st century that the latter schools did significant harm to Aboriginal children who attended them by removing them from their families, depriving them of their ancestral languages, sterilization, and exposing many of them to physical and sexual abuse at the hands of staff and other students, and enfranchising them forcibly. History[edit] The foundations of the system were the pre-confederation Gradual Civilization Act (1857) and the Gradual Enfranchisement Act (1869).

About Residential Schools From the early 1830s to 1996, thousands of First Nation, Inuit and Métis children were forced to attend residential schools in an attempt to assimilate them into the dominant culture. Those children suffered abuses of the mind, body, emotions, and spirit that can be almost unimaginable. Over 150,000 children, some as young as four years old, attended the government-funded and church-run residential schools. It is estimated that there are 80,000 residential school Survivors alive today. "Residential school abuse survivors seek $1 billion in damages": Six Nations Public Library-Digital Archive Residential school abuse survivors seek $1 billion in damages NORTH VANCOUVER - Survivors of abuse at native residential schools in British Columbia are seeking an estimated $1 billion in damages. The money would come from civil lawsuits tiled on behalf of an estimated 2,000 survivors of residential schools and their families.

Residential School Experience Tyler Clarke Daily Herald "I'm not going to tell my story because I've heard my story a lot today," former residential school student Marlene Bear said, Thursday. Bear was one of many former students and family members of former students to speak up during three days of sharing panels at the Prince Albert Indian Métis Friendship Centre this week. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) It is difficult to place an exact figure on the number of residential schools to which Aboriginal people have been sent in Canada. While religious orders had been operating such schools before Confederation in 1867, it was not the 1880s that the federal government fully embraced the residential school model for Aboriginal education. While the government began to close the schools in the 1970s, the last school remained in operation until 1996.

A history of residential schools in Canada - Canada What is a residential school? In the 19th century, the Canadian government believed it was responsible for educating and caring for aboriginal people in Canada. It thought their best chance for success was to learn English and adopt Christianity and Canadian customs. “Reframing” Native Narratives: The Allure of Project 562 You’ve probably heard about Matika Wilbur by now (and if you haven’t, now is a good time to fix that!) Matika Wilbur’s story is that of a young woman with places to go and people to photograph – the 28-year-old Swinomish/Tulalip photographer from the Swinomish Reservation in Washington has started an ambitious project to photograph and collect oral histories from all 562 federally-recognized Indigenous tribes in the United States. With stories on Upworthy, ICTMN, the New York Times, NBC News, Huffington Post, and more, Wilbur’s story has gone viral – and at last count she has more than quadrupled her crowd-sourced Kickstarter fundraising campaign, which covers project expenses such as photographic equipment, travel fees, and more. Why is this creating such a buzz? Why does everyone love Wilbur?

Sexual Abuse Native leaders hope Truth and Reconciliation hearings will break the cycle of violence. The residential school in Port Alberni, one of the most notorious, operated for more than half a century from 1920 to 1973. Jerry Adams hears "Just get over it," a lot. He hears it from some young aboriginal kids who say they're sick of talking about their grandparents' residential school experiences. Residential School Money: Has It Helped Survivors Heal? The Aboriginal Healing Foundation (AHF) has just released The Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement’s Common Experience Payment and Healing: A Qualitative Study Exploring Impacts on Recipients. (PDF of study available here.) The Common Experience Payment (CEP) is a component of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement and is intended to monetarily recognize and compensate the experiences of former Residential School students.

Immigration Net migration rates for 2011: positive (blue), negative (orange), stable (green), and no data (gray) Immigration is the movement of people into another country or region to which they are not native in order to settle there,[1]especially permanently[2] Immigration is a result of a number of factors, including economic and/or political reasons, family re-unification, natural disasters or the wish to change one's surroundings voluntarily. Statistics[edit] As of 2006[update], the International Organization for Migration has estimated the number of foreign migrants worldwide to be more than 200 million.[4] Europe hosted the largest number of immigrants, with 70 million people in 2005.[4] North America, with over 45 million immigrants, is second, followed by Asia, which hosts nearly 25 million. Most of today's migrant workers come from Asia.[5]

Canada must not ignore Indigenous 'genocide', landmark report warns Canadians can no longer turn a blind eye to the “genocide” of Indigenous peoples in the country, a landmark report on missing and murdered women has concluded. Indigenous communities across the country have for decades attempted to convey the depth and scope of a tragedy that has haunted thousands of families. As many as 4,000 Indigenous women and girls are believed to have been killed or gone missing in Canada over the past 30 years – although the true number of victims is unlikely ever to be known. On Monday the findings of a three-year inquiry were released at a solemn ceremony in Quebec, attended by victims’ families, survivors, Indigenous leaders and senior government officials.

In this website we can read about how strict the rules in the residential schools were... if some students did not convert to a more (canadien) way of life and religion and etc... they would use violence to do so. The impact of those schools marked these peoples for life. They had to convert to something they were not and thats how many of them lost their idenety even after getting out of those schools because they did not know what to belive in anymore. by stuartghita Oct 26

This webpage goes into detail about what Residential Schools were created for, what students went through at the schools and the permanent effects they had on the children who attended them. It also has extracts from the apologies given by the Canadian government to the victims of the Residential Schools system. by hazbounwasher Oct 25

In this website, we can see that the residential schools' survivors are people that have been abused from an early age physically, emotionally, sexually and mentally. Unfortunately, the circle of abuse never stops as it repeats itself with the same behavior once the survivors have children. Obviously this is affecting the family circle and stimulates more dysfunction with close ones. We think people should never be in such conditions since they take them as a lifestyle that is unacceptable. by leclairlemay Oct 25

Residential schools are schools that Indian children were forced to go to in order to become more European. This website is a great source of information because it explains why residential schools were created, what life was like in the schools and the effect they had on the students afterwards. by scarpaleggiamaiorino Oct 24

In this link ,under the subtile " Living conditions at the residential schools" , it informs us on how terrible the conditions they were living in were. For instence they had the very minimum of education, girl were tought house work and boys outdoors work for example : farming. They were almost all sexualy abused and beaten. Every place in the school was dirty and the children were not taken care of most of them die of illenses cought in the school. Everyone was clutered and there was no secure places to be found. by simlaramee Oct 23

On this site under the subtile " long-term impacts ", it explains that even onece you are out of the residential school the consecenses don't just stop there. Most aboriginals that now have kids lack parenting skills and tend to do to raise there kids the way they were raised ( with abuse & violence). Generations of children have grown up without a nuturing family life ( even without beeing in a residential school it's self). by simlaramee Oct 23

This website talks about how the residential schools take part in taking away their childhood culture and replacing it with what they think is the superior culture. It also states that these tasks were taken too far because the english thought that the indians' spiritual beliefs were not good which ended up being wrong of coarse. by brownfamili Oct 21

This website is a very detailed and is abondant with information revolving around the Residential Schools. This website also explains, in depth and professionalism, the reasons behind the creation of the Residential schools, the life and atmosphere inside their schools, the long-term impacts on the aboriginal communities, and also other well documented facts to be read. This website is strongly recommended to people who would want to know more about the subject. by bolduczienkiewiczhamdy Oct 19

In this pearl, the website explains how the residential schools had a huge impact on the kids and families...the schools were very strict because they had to force the students to become more ''canadian'' but they would do it in a very violent way. by dufresnehernandez Oct 17

This website is a very complete information source because it gives the reasons for which residential schools were created as well as the impact of these institutions on the future of Aboriginal communities in a pleasant to read Q & A form. This source is one of the best we found. by wangdulong Oct 15

This webpage gives you a good view of the beggining all the way to the end of residential schools, such as what led to the residential schools, the shift away from residential schools, the long-term impacts and much more. by boccanfusothirion Oct 15

Residential schools where young Aboriginals were sent to go to school, although they were mistreated. They had to learn a different way of living and learn a new language for some. They were underfed and the schools were very strict. This website describes Residential schools in greater detail. by difiorelaplante Oct 8

The resendential schools contributed to extreme low self-estime. The young Aboriginals would result in high rates of alcolism, substance abuse, self-abuse and suicide. The Aboriginals loss their culture since they were obligated to learn chritianisme. Henceforth, the children grew up thinking they did not belong in either world since they were no longer considered aboriginal since they did not have the culture of an native amercain, but they were not considered ''white'' since they did not have the same skin color (racism). by serhanboulet Oct 8

We think that this is a excellent site to explain the life condition of the poor children who lost everything thy had and loved. by durandeaua Oct 7

Comment: The resendential schools contributed to extreme low self-estime. The young Aboriginals would result in high rates of alcolism, substance abuse, self-abuse and suicide. The Aboriginals loss their culture since they were obligated to learn chritianisme. Henceforth, the children grew up thinking they did not belong in either world since they were no longer considered aboriginal since they did not have the culture of an native amercain, but they were not considered ''white'' since they did not have the same skin color (racism). by serhanboulet Oct 7

The reisidential schools took away their way of life, their traditions and their hopes and dreams. They lived with fear of being beaten and mistreated. Even though they learned the basics of surviving in modern societies, it was not easy and done in a humain way. by biellowener Oct 7

I think that the residential schools took away their culture, they lived in fear, that did not help them but they still learned how to read, write and manual labor like woodworking . by dragcairn Oct 7

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