Last week we had a visitor come to my 12th grade classroom to talk about the residential school system and his personal experience with it. He emphasized, in his experience, that he was told over and over again that he was a 'heathen' and a 'pagan' and that's why they were doing it to him (subjugating him, essentially.) He told stories about young girls who had pins pushed through their tongues and told to bite down on the pin to stab each side of their mouth, to punish them for speaking Cree. He also told us of secret babies that were born to girls who were imprisoned in this school and sold off to Europeans overseas, never to be seen again. He also told us of his inability to parent his own children, not really knowing how to show love but only knowing what punishment looked like. It was heartbreaking and a very good description of all I've read.
I have heard stories before, have cried over the idea that we (Canada) has done this to generations of people, and yet nothing brings it home quite like a first hand experience. We also heard a presentation from one of the members of the class, whose family has experienced the residential school system. Before our speaker came in, he stood up in class, gave a 20 minute presentation, where he told us why a lot of the First Nations people they see in our community were alcoholics and left absolutely no doubt in their minds of the reason. He told us of his grandfather being raped repeatedly by the priest, and the nuns, who were supposed to care for the children, taking him out of his bed at night for this visit. The man who came as a speaker to our class, his main goal was reconciliation. He said that the only way that could happen is if the knowledge of what happened to those children became common knowledge and there was an understanding between those White Canadians and those First Peoples who had gone through this, about what had happened and what needed to be done from now on. I have taught about the residential school system every year since I started teaching. However, I am always learning. More about this next post!
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AuthorMasters in Education student at the University of New Brunswick, I am avidly interested in the future of education, especially for First Nation, Metis and Inuit students in Canada. I believe change is going to come from these sectors who have the most room for growth and the most interest in seeing the status quo changed. Archives
March 2016
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