Residential Schools

1. Residential Schools • In 1928, a government official predicted Canada would end its "Indian problem" within two generations. Church-run, government-funded residential schools for native children were supposed to prepare students for life in white society.

3. Aboriginal children who attended these schools were often subjected to physical, sexual and emotional abuse.

5. Life in a residential school • For failing a test - no food for a day; • For not working hard enough - 4 hours of extra work (in school or garden); • For disobedience, and rude or disorderly conduct - no food or water for a day, a beating (with a stick on the back), extra garden work;

7. For speaking native language; (first offence) no supper ; (second offence) no supper and beating; (third offence) considered disobedience and punished as such; • For going off by yourself (without another student present) ; several hours of kneeling alone on a rock floor where all can see is the wall.

8. The previous list is an example of the typical type of punishments given to aboriginal children at residential schools: • But punishments varied - one chief recalled his priest making students who spoke their native language go outside in the winter and stick their tongues to a metal fence.

11. 1996 – the last residential school closed • In 1998 the government offered an official apology and An Aboriginal Healing Foundation was established

12. However for Aboriginal people The most damaging part of residential schools, was that children were taught that their culture was not worth preserving. • traditional values were wrong and primitive • white Canadians came from a more "advanced" form of social organization • Students came to see their homes as "dirty" and "cold," their parents as dressing "funny" and as smelling "bad"