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Isabelle Knockwood's Out Of The Depths

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After reading Isabelle Knockwood’s book Out of the Depths, residential schools really opened my eyes on what really happened to the Aboriginal peoples who were sent there. Knockwood did a very good job explaining what she went through during the long 11 years that she was at the residential school. It’s still hard to believe that human beings would do that to other humans. Knockwood was one of the many people sent to the Indian Residential School in Shubenacadie from 1936 to 1947. She grew up in Wolfville Nova Scotia along with her three brothers and one sister: Rosie, Henry, Joe, and Noel. When Knockwood was only five years old she was sent to the Resi, where she found it hard to understand the teachers and Nuns because she did not know much English. Trying her very best in school there were times that Knockwood wished she could forget. Watching friends and classmates of hers get beaten in front of the dinning hall and getting hurt by dangerous machines during work time. Knockwood thought about her siblings everyday, but mostly about her brothers, only because Knockwood would only get to see them on the odd …show more content…

A lot of the remaining survivors seemed to be surprised when he asked for “forgiveness of the Aboriginal peoples and that it was “joining” us in “recovering from this experience”” (pg.168) These people have been dealing with this since they left and the government wants the survivors to join them on “dealing” it does not seem right. The Aboriginal peoples through the apology was a little to late, and they were not respected; I found it was not right that they did not have translators for the apology for the people who do not speak English. The government approached the apology the wrong way and I completely understand why the survivors did not feel

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The perception was that Native American adults had a limited ability to learn new skills and concepts. Later in the report, it is expressed that children learn little at day school, causing their “tastes to be fashioned at home, and [their] inherited aversion to toil is in no way combated. ”11 Davin recommended that similar industrial boarding schools should be built in Canada, which would attempt to assimilate Native children into the European culture.12 Nicholas Flood Davin’s research and advances about the industrial schools in America, was important in the creation and developing of the Residential school system in

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Within the novel, as Lisa gets older, she begins to understand the struggles of her family that all connect and come back to the leading cause, which is the residential school system. Monkey Beach shows how “Historical trauma coupled with ongoing present-day traumas such as anti-Indigenous racism and a lack of clean drinking water [has] a massive negative impact on Indigenous communities, resulting in (and combining with) issues such as addiction, limited education, incarceration, violence, abuse, suicidality, homelessness and poverty. These symptoms are what many social agencies and service providers focus on addressing. But without considering root causes, one of which is intergenerational trauma, conventional solutions and treatments simply won’t work” (Seto). The residential school system aimed to assimilate indigenous peoples into Western society and strip them of their culture.

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The TRC’s “The History” author appeals to logos through the use quantitative findings. The use of logical evidence from the collection of testimonials made by former residential school students is an effective way to aid the persuasion of a reader. Throughout “The History”, the author describes the memories of known First Nations peoples Frederic Ernest Koe, Marlene Kayseas, Lily Bruce and many others. In addition, the author quotes Vitaline Elsie Jenner’s use of ‘kaya nakasin’ (TRC, 2015, p.38) in describing her experience with residential school. The author’s example that contains the use native language reaffirms his credibility and detailed knowledge of the

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