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Residential School Essay

800 Words4 Pages

Residential Schools was an enormous lengthening event in our history. Residential schools were to assimilate and integrate white people’s viewpoints and values to First Nations children. The schools were ran by white nuns and white priests to get rid of the “inner Indian” in the children. In residential schools, the children suffered immensely from physical, emotional, sexual and spiritual abuse. Although the many tragedies, language was a huge loss by the First Nations children. One of the worst punishments in residential schools was for speaking their own language. The use of residential schools on First Nations has led to substantial loss of the indigenous languages, therefore, causing further cultural losses to First Nations people.
One …show more content…

Residential schools were implemented to have the race eliminated, therefore, the indigenous language needed to be removed from their memory. The language for the indigenous people was …show more content…

The family members were greatly affected when the children lost their sense of the cultures language. At around the age of sixteen, the children went home as their “duties” and “obligations” were done. The families tried to communicate with them but the children were brain washed Europeans. As younger siblings came into residential schools, they attempted to speak their language to the older ones and the older ones had forgotten the language. The parents were also confused how the children believed in such strong European worldviews. This relationship with their parents can be easily broken due to multiple years of constant banter on the children. The miserable ending is that the children do not even know that the brainwashing has even happened. The children are naïve because they were punished if they did not obey the nuns and priests. In their communities, the children became adults after they left the residential school, had trouble adjusting to the indigenous ways of life. Survivors often could not develop bonds or trust their elders. The eldest in the communities were hurt that the adults could not learn the traditional ways of their songs, games, story telling, and dances. The adults have trouble making the peace between their traditions because of the constant trauma in their minds. The survivors also had trouble respecting their elders because

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