Choosing My Topic
Choosing my research topic was an easy decision for me. Due to my Indigenous heritage I always try to frame my research papers on Indigenous studies whenever possible. This class focusing on the history of education allowed me to focus my Indigenous studies on the residential school system. I believe this is one of the most crucial topics to analyse when attempting to understand and learn about Indigenous cultures due to the impact these schools had and continue to have on Indigenous communities throughout Canada. These schools were an attempt at cultural genocide; a successful attempt in a lot of communities and families including mine. Due to my grandmothers experience at residential school I have lost the privileged to learn and practice Indigenous culture as she was forced and taught to feel incredible shame about her culture and therefore she stopped practising her cultural traditions all together. Although choosing my topic was easy narrowing my topic proved much more difficult. There are endless sources online on residential schools and their impacts all taking several points of view on the topic proving both positive and negative experiences from students who attended these schools (majority negative). Due to the influx of sources I had a hard time sorting through these sources to find the ones that interested me the most and focused on the psychological effects the conditions of these schools had on students. There were plenty of first hand accounts of experiences at residential schools which proved extremely helpful in my research allowing me to gain a primary perspective on these schools instead of just a third person analysis. These accounts allowed me to gain my own perspective and argument on these schools despite my negative bias I had when going into my research.
For further comments on my research paper, refer to the tab “Learning Canadian History”
My Research paper:
Residential Schools: Isolating the Indigenous Population
Using the concept of childhood as a focal point residential schools acted as a tool of colonization to assimilate the Indigenous children of Canada into Euro-Canadian society. By analysing age as a category residential schools used the notion of childhood in attempt to shape these children into the citizens they envisioned by “killing the Indian in the child”. I argue, instead of achieving assimilation these schools only further isolated these children from their culture, identity and ultimately colonial Canadian society. This essay argues how these schools isolated Indigenous children and communities through the teaching content, methods, conditions, general layout of these schools and dispossessing them from their communities.
Residential schools were established in the nineteenth century to assimilate Indigenous children into Euro-Canadian culture in attempt to solve “the Indian Problem” and in exchange these children lost their culture, values and language isolating them from their Indigenous identity. These schools were supposed to be government sponsored but instead the responsibility was laid mostly upon the churches in attempt to convert and dissolve Indigenous culture in exchange for Canadian religion. These schools were originally encouraged by some First Nations communities as they saw benefit in having their children learn and adapt to the new dominant colonial society they were now forced to evolve to. The Indian Act was passed in 1876 and used by the government to solve the Indian Problem placing responsibility of Indigenous education in the hands of the government; they saw the need to integrate Indigenous youth into setter society in order to make Aboriginal communities economically, socially and overall independent from the Canadian government. Although Indigenous communities supported the general intent of these schools at the start, these schools turned into an attempt of cultural genocide using isolation and attempted assimilation; a process these communities did not intend for their children to experience. It is crucial to acknowledge that although these schools have a negative connotation some students did have positive experiences as the conditions, educators and curriculum varied between schools. For example, Paige Raibon discusses a principal who worked towards providing students with a connection to their Indigenous heritage through art. Even though he proved to be a more progressive principal than most others he still proceeded to remove children from their communities, forced religion on them and found it necessary to “civilize” the Indigenous children. These schools, including more progressive schools, focused on assimilation measures by removing them from their families, communities and culture to fully integrate them into Canadian culture which I argue was unsuccessful.
The conditions of these schools allowed for these students to remain inferior through their European focused teaching practices, teachers, underfunding and removal of their culture and language. These schools were detrimental due to the fact they assumed not only the sameness of Indigenous culture as a whole, but the sameness of the Indigenous students to the white students in Canadian society. This assumed that the Indigenous students could thrive under the same conditions and school curriculum as white students which was not the case. Although the curriculum was often structured towards white students, the Indigenous students often spent more time on practical skills rather than actual education. The half- day system focused around the “four R’s”: reading, writing, arithmetic and religion which included students spending only two to three hours a day focused on school work and the rest of the day performing chores such as working, farming or household tasks, while white students spent five or more hours on school work and little or no time on chores. This system an attempt to allow students to possess the skills they needed to become a functioning and wage earning adult in Canadian society but was realistically a means for the government to run the school while providing as little funds as possible by getting the students to maintain the school instead of paid workers. This half-day system was eliminated in the 1950’s when government funding increased, inferring the need for manual labour of the students to make up for the lack of funding before the 1950’s. This represents the vast inequality of teaching methods between white students and Indigenous students inferring how Indigenous students were set up for failure and a life in the lower class due to their insufficient schooling that focuses on tasks that do not relate to their home and communities. Forcing these students to learn manual labour tasks that were often unnecessary within their communities back home isolated these children from their communities as they no longer possess the traditions of their community and instead have skills they will not need. Jean Barman explains these intentions stating, “It was critical that they acquire the practical skills permitting their entry into mainstream society, but only at its very lowest rungs” insinuating that they wanted these children to obtain European skills and culture but only to the degree they deem fit. This argues these schools provided students with enough education for welfare state but denied them the education necessary to achieve a higher status in society in order to keep them inferior to their white counterparts. Both the lack of time spent on education and the excessive amount of time spent on chores isolated these children from both mainstream Euro-Canadian standards of children and their traditional standard of children.
The teachers of these schools also add to the concern towards the level of education provided in these schools as they were often missionaries that were under qualified, under trained, ill prepared and not paid for being teachers. Inadequate funding resulted in difficulty finding qualified staff suited for teaching at these schools so the government used the churches to provide teachers. These teachers were described by a fellow faculty member as regarding the children as “dirty breeds” and “subhuman” indicating how some of these teachers felt towards these children as well as inferring how these teachers treated these students. The Primate of Canada Archbishop Walter Barfoot acknowledged the incompetent teachers the church provided stating, “we have never been able to staff our schools-either residential or day. The church is to blame. Cook does the best he can with the people we’ve been able to recruit” but still these teachers remained and continued to run these schools. This allowed the government to place the responsibility of these schools onto the missionaries leading to these schools focusing on religion more than they were on education. This forced these students to abandon their culture in exchange for Christian or Catholic religion while simultaneously neglecting the education they needed to conform to Euro-Canadian society. This is evident when analysing a typical day at a residential school.
The half-day system, teaching staff and focus on religion provided students with a basic and generalized education that was irrelevant to their culture, previous life experience and educational needs that often concluded with students undereducated and ill prepared to achieve success within Canadian society. Students were often forbidden to speak their native language, stripped of all traditional clothes and given new names, stripping them of their identity in attempt to civilize these students but instead only isolated them from their traditional identity. This left students with skills that placed them in neither category of Indigenous, due to the fact most students lost their native language, culture and beliefs, nor in the category of Canadian citizen as they were not given the tools needed to thrive in Euro-Canadian society. This argues students were striped of their knowledge and skills of their Indigenous culture while also never being accepted into Canadian society often leaving them with an identity crisis not belonging anywhere. John Tootoosis, a former residential school students explains this phenomenon when he states,
“[W]hen an Indian comes out of these places it is like being put between two walls in a room and left hanging in the middle. On one side are all the things he learned from his people and their way of life that was being wiped out, and on the other side are the whiteman’s ways which he could never fully understand since he never had the right amount of education and could not be part of it. There he is, hanging in the middle of two cultures and he is not a whiteman and he is not an Indian.” These attempts of assimilation through the words of John Tootoosis begin to be seen as what they truly were, acts of isolation.
Abuse within the residential system provides an argument of the long term psychological effects these schools had on the students that allowed for the isolation of these students from Euro-Canadian society long term. Abuse was common although not consistent through all schools and all students as not all staff presented abusive behaviour. Physical abuse was often used as a form of punishment as a method of correction for deviant students. This included children being beaten, chained or confined and in some cases sexual abuse. These instances of abuse were rarely acted upon by the government as the conditions of these schools were rarely a concern for the government as they constantly attempted to push responsibility of these schools elsewhere. This abuse is outlined in Jonathan Lofft’s article “Two Young Ladies in Connection with a Certain School” discussing whistle blowing and the omittance of evidence about the neglect and abuse within residential schools from the public record; a common trend within the government in regards to residential schools. This article follows two residential school teachers at a Saskachewan school, Patricia Watson and Victoria Ketcheson who witness constant abuse first hand. For example, Watson recalls administrators beating a boy every time he wet his pants which she described happened everyday. These teachers also speak towards the conditions of which their teachers treated them stating, “the children are maltreated, cursed at, made to bear the brunt of senile sex instincts, exposed to the most brutish forms of behaviour and nothing is said- not even a gentle remonstrance” arguing how these children were not only abused but the schools neglect of these instances. These allegations were recognized by the government but ignored as comments like these often were, proving the governments unwillingness to accept responsibility of these conditions.
The ignorance of the government towards these schools is seen throughout many historical articles on residential schools. There is estimated 150,000 Aboriginal students who attended these schools and a devastating 6,000 who died while in attendance with children entering these schools as young as four to as old as fifteen. It is crucial to note that these numbers are estimates due to the fact that little care was taken when recorded statistics about Indigenous peoples shown in the TRC, “According to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), at least 3,200 Indigenous children died in the overcrowded residential schools. Due to poor record-keeping by the churches and federal government, it is unlikely that we will ever know the total loss of life at residential schools.”. This is also seen in the primary source, “The Story of a National Crime: Record of the Health Conditions of the Indians of Canada from 1904-1921” written by Dr. Peter Bryce who was the the Chief Medical Officer of the Indian Department in the 1920’s. As shown in the document through a letter McLean, the Assistant Deputy and Secretary wrote in reply to Dr. Bryce stating that the government did not have any recent data on how or why there was an increase in the amount of deaths within these Indigenous communities, only a rough estimate of the percentage of death rates. The 1920’s Annual Report of the Department of Indian Affairs also argues the lack of attention paid to the health conditions of these schools by the government. This document comprised of eighty pages only has four attributed to outlining the conditions of residential schools. In these four pages there is no mention of poor health conditions or death rates in which was prominent in most, if not all residential schools. Instead, this document outlines that inspectors are sent to these schools to report on these conditions but mentions nothing of their findings which argues Dr. Bryce’s credibility as he describes this exact phenomenon in this article stating the government did not release the findings of these inspectors. These three documents combined argue the government’s inability to recognize the poor health conditions of these schools allowing for these conditions and death toll to continue ultimately adding to the psychological impacts on these children further isolating them from society.
The government not only failed to take full responsibility for these schools and the abuse that was present but also failed to provide adequate funding in order for sufficient conditions within the schools. Rosemary and Josefowitz state, “A 1938 federal Department of Indian Affairs memorandum noted that IRS were desperately underfunded, with a per capita allotment of $180 at a time when other comparable children’s residential facilities received $550 to $642 per capita”. Inadequate funding influenced the food quality and quantity provided for students often leaving students malnourished and highly susceptible to disease. Working students often received slightly more nutritional meals to enable them to last through a hard work day, although these meals were still unsatisfactory. For example, for breakfast students would receive porridge or cornmeal with milk or syrup served with hot tea and bread while the working students would also receive butter. This underfunding led to insufficient food, clothing and health care in most, if not all schools. This is argued in The Canadian Encyclopedia stating, “The schools could have helped children to reduce their vulnerability to tuberculosis by providing them with sanitary, well-ventilated living quarters, an adequate diet, warm clothing, and sufficient rest. Rather, the residential schools regularly failed to provide the healthy living conditions, nutritious food, sufficient clothing, and physical regime that would prevent students from getting sick in the first place, and would allow those who were infected a fighting chance at recovery. “ These poor conditions due to underfunding and abuse were only a part of the traumatic experience these children faced, the basic structure of the schools also had a negative impact.
Four key aspects: parental loss, institutional care, forced acculturation and discrimination/racism present in residential schools are the aspects that negatively affected most students who attended these schools. These aspects were a direct result of Canadian law and policy inscribed within these schools and used as tools of assimilation. Through these tools and inadequate school operations and conditions came maltreatment, trauma and bullying further adding to the overall experience of most students and often leading to psychological impacts, traumatic reactions, impaired developmental maturation and social marginalisation. The Canadian government through residential schools subjected Aboriginal children to these conditions which in turn directly relates to the current insufficient educational and economic success, disrupted language and culture, health problems, and overall poor welfare of a large percent of Aboriginal peoples and communities. Rosemary Barns and Nina Josefowitz emphasise these characteristics to form a model as an attempt to understand the extent of the impacts of these schools as there was little to no studies that outlined the full extent of the psychological impacts before their research published in 2018.
Once attendance became compulsory the government through the Indian Act allowed authorities to violently dispossess children from their homes, family and community. This included searching for students who have run away, which was a common occurrence, and bringing them back to school. Rosemary Barns and Nina Josefowitz state, “many former students recall being taken from their homes forcibly, unexpectedly, or with little explanation” describing this process. During their time at school students often had little to no contact with their families due to the schools distance from their communities and school policies that limited visits and letters home which had to be written in English, a language their families and themselves barely or did not understand. Most students did not see their family for years placing dependency on the school and its staff causing students to feel lonely, fearful and lacking affection throughout their most crucial developmental years. Studies suggest that parental loss or separation is detrimental to the psychological functioning and development of children causing and increased risk of depression, anxiety, panic disorder, social withdrawal, low self esteem and phobias which all students who attended these schools were susceptible to. These students would have been able to limit these side effects of parental loss by forming reliable, trusting and caring relationships with residential school staff, but this was rare as many students recall most staff not possessing any of these qualities towards students leaving them vulnerable to these psychological conditions . Institutional care furthered students isolation by creating a setting revolving around a large group of students controlled and forced into the same everyday scheduled activities overseen by superior authority with limited contact between family members and friends from home due to age and gender separations. Parental loss, institutional care, forced acculturation and discrimination/racism are all aspects of residential schools that intertwine with abuse and loss of culture to produce students with psychological impacts for both short term and long term.
Residential schools did not only impact children’s lives while they were attending, but also continued to affect them and their families long after they left. Jean Barman supports this in her article “Schooled for Inequality: The Education of British Columbia Aboriginal Children”, she stressed how these schools drastically changed the lives of students as well as their ancestors many years later. The quote, “although my older brother and I didn’t attend residential school, we didn’t really escape it either as it visited us every day of our childhood through the replaying over and over of our parents’ childhood trauma…” showcases this long lasting impact discussing how the children of those who attended residential schools were forced to deal with the trauma her parents carry around with them, feeling like she too is affected by these schools. This article further infers this impact by stating that Indigenous peoples have the highest rates of incarceration, suicide, alcoholism and impoverishment arguing the trauma ingrained in these communities from these schools showing how these conditions translated into real life problems often isolating them from their families and communities.
The insufficient conditions, teaching, funding, abuse, government responsibility, and general structure of these schools all combine to isolate these students from their community, Euro-Canadian society and their own identity. The assimilation methods such as forbidding students to speak their traditional language, limiting family contact, displacing students from their communities prove to be a failure as these students ended up becoming neither a Canadian citizen nor an Indigenous citizen. The Canadian government through residential schools used age as a category and the notion of childhood in attempt to get these children to grow up “civilized” but instead only isolated from their identity, culture and Euro-Canadian society.
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