Isolation In Residential Schools

The late 1800s to 1980s approximately 150,000 First Nations children in Canada were placed in residential schools. Canada failed in the treatment of indigenous children in residential because of vital child labour, isolation of children’s cultures, and severe physical abusement. To begin with, Canada failed in the treatment of indigenous children in residential schools due to the vital child labour. The residential schools were lacking on money and students’ labour became vital, boys would be “trained in farming and basic crafts. Girls received instruction in domestic skills…In addition students were assigned chores”(Stolen Lives, 139). Parents sent their children to residential schools in hopes of getting them well-educated for them to be

Therefore, Canada failed in the treatment of indigenous children in residential schools due to the vital child labour. Furthermore, Canada failed in the treatment of indigenous children in residential schools because of the isolation of children’s cultures and identity. The residential school system had the objective to isolate children from the influence of their culture and traditions, in classes they would discuss “Indian and white life, the evils of Indian isolation” (Stolen Lives, 135) Teaching children that their cultures and spiritual beliefs are inferior and unequal is intolerable, every culture has their own beliefs that they are righteous for, no culture is more prominent than another. Young children adapt information quite rapidly, developing hatred in their minds for other cultures is unacceptable as they are losing their identity that has been passed on by their ancestors for centuries. In the movie We Were Children Lyna questions a girl as to why she washes her hands quite often and in response, she states that she is not white enough and that if you are dark it means you are

The school was embedding such thoughts into their young minds creating hatred for their culture and identity. Therefore, Canada failed in the treatment of indigenous children in residential schools because of the isolation of children’s cultures and identity. Lastly, Canada failed in the treatment of indigenous children in residential schools because of the severe physical abusement student’s received. Students were often punished on a daily basis at the school, the punishments were brutal as they would abuse by “withholding of meals, and washing the child’s mouth with soap. In extreme cases…electrical shocks or pushed needles into their tongues”(Stolen Lives, 138). In the residential schools, students were abused because the objective was to intimidate and dominate the children. Abusement went as far as sexual abuse, students would get raped by the church and school officials, and this was a massive crime being as they were sexually abusing a