Verna Kirkness On Residential Education

Children were taught to do the chores and instructed on how to dress. Children were not allowed to wear their traditional clothing or talk in their traditional language. The clothing they could wear was traditional European style clothing. European style clothing included skirts, dresses for the girls and pants and shirts for the boys. The clothing was often below standards, in other words it was much like the food, where it was not in good conditions and lacked funding. The other issue was the children could not have contact with their siblings, particularly between brothers and sisters because people feared they would connect in their native languages, which was prohibited. Christian teachings were common among the schools this was particularly

One of those was involved in education of Indigenous people and she, herself is an Indigenous person having experienced some of the hardships of Residential schools. Her name is Verna Kirkness. Kirkness did not attend Residential schools herself as she was a non-status Indian, however, she was a teacher’s helper through her senior years of school. This school was on the reserve, so it would have been considered a day school. After she left school she taught at schools in remote areas during the beginning part of her career because she just wanted a job. She was eighteen when she started teaching in 1954 because they were short of teachers for remote areas she did not need much education to be a teacher in these areas. Kirkness notes these schools would include multiple grades and had little funding. After some years of teaching in remote areas she became a counsellor in Winnipeg. She notes, “I enjoyed working with the girls, young women, really. I did my best to encourage them to complete their courses. They faced many challenges, as some had dependents to look after—children or partners, some of whom did not have jobs.” She took on the counselling for the girls and women, while a male college took on the counselling of the boys and men. She wanted to help women achieve better jobs and future by helping them with their education. Kirkness discusses the difficultly students had adjusting to the new way of life, “Since most of the homes were with non-Native families, our students had to get used to a different way of life in totally different cultures.” The students were Indigenous, but the placement homes these students were placed in were not, for the most part, Indigenous. These homes were used for students who were particularly going to Winnipeg for high school diplomas. Kirkness also discusses how counselling would help students, “I hoped to impress upon the audience that counselling covered a host