After my haircut, I wondered in silence if my mother had died, as they had cut my hair close to the scalp. I looked in the mirror to see what I looked like. I ran away from school, but I was captured and brought back.
I made two more attempts, but with no better luck. Realizing that there was no escape, I resigned myself to the task of learning the three Rs. Until the late s, residential schools operated on a half-day system, in which students spent half the day in the classroom and the other at work.
The theory behind this was that students would learn skills that would allow them to earn a living as adults. However, the reality was that work had more to do with running the school inexpensively than with providing students with vocational training. Tasks were separated by gender. Girls were responsible for housekeeping cooking, cleaning, laundry, sewing , while boys were involved in carpentry, construction, general maintenance and agricultural labour.
Funding was a pressing concern in the residential school system. From the s until the s, the government tried constantly to shift the burden of the system onto the churches and onto the students, whose labour contributed financially to the schools. By the s, it was clear to many that the half-day system had failed to provide residential students with adequate education and training.
However, the half-day system was not eliminated until the late s, when more funding became available owing to a strong economy. School days began early, usually with a bell that summoned students to dress and attend chapel or mass.
Breakfast, like all meals, was spartan, and eaten quickly in a refectory or dining hall. This was followed by three hours of classes or a period of work before breaking for lunch. The afternoon schedule followed a similar pattern, including either classes or work, followed by more chores before supper. Time was also set aside for recreation, usually in the afternoon or evening. Some schools had small libraries, while many schools offered organized sports as well as musical instruction, including choirs and brass bands.
The evening closed with prayer, and bedtime was early. It was a highly regimented system. On weekends there were no classes, but Sunday usually meant more time spent on religious practices. Until the s, holidays for many of the students included periods of work and play at the school. Only from the s on did the schools routinely send children home for holidays. Therefore, many students in the residential school system did not see their family for years.
I, p Overall, students received a poor education at the residential schools. This was true both in terms of academic subjects and vocational training. Students had to cope with teachers who were usually ill-prepared, and curricula and materials derived from and reflecting an alien culture.
Lessons were taught in English or French , languages that many of the children did not speak. In the workplace, the overseers were often harsh, and the supposed training purpose of the work was limited or absent. Moreover, the attempted assimilation of Indigenous students left them disoriented and insecure, with the feeling that they belonged to neither Indigenous nor settler society. John Tootoosis, who attended the Delmas boarding school also known as the Thunderchild school in Saskatchewan, was blunt in his assessment of the residential school system:.
There he is, hanging in the middle of two cultures and he is not a whiteman and he is not an Indian. They washed away practically everything from our minds, all the things an Indian needed to help himself, to think the way a human person should in order to survive.
Many students suffered abuse at residential schools. Impatience and correction often led to excessive punishment, including physical abuse. In some cases, children were heavily beaten, chained or confined. Some of the staff were sexual predators, and many students were sexually abused. Through this early period, these mission schools were primarily located in Eastern Canada, but as missions and colonial efforts moved west of the Great Lakes, so did the schools.
The children must be kept constantly within the circle of civilized conditions. I want to get rid of the Indian problem. I do not think as a matter of fact, that the country ought to continuously protect a class of people who are able to stand alone… Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question, and no Indian Department, that is the whole object of this Bill.
Originally, the residential school system focused on industrial labour schools and farm schools. By , there were 22 industrial schools and 39 residential schools in Canada. In , at its peak, there were 80 schools in operation, and while most of them would be called residential schools, they often maintained industrial work through large gardens, barns, workshops and sewing rooms. Indian agents on the reservations normally resorted to withholding rations or sending in agency police to enforce the school policy.
In some cases, police were sent onto the reservations to seize children from their parents, whether willing or not. The police would continue to take children until the school was filled, so sometimes orphans were offered up or families would negotiate a family quota.
An court ruling increased pressure to keep Indian children in Boarding schools. Some Native American parents saw boarding school education for what it was intended to be — the total destruction of Indian culture.
Others objected to specific aspects of the education system, the manner of discipline and the drilling. Resentment of the boarding schools was most severe because the schools broke the most sacred and fundamental of all human ties, the parent-child bond. Give a gift of love to a child or Elder living on impoverished remote Native American reservations. Food insecurity affects the health of many Native American children and Elders. Your commitment is needed now.
We call this group Circle of Friends, because a friend is someone who makes a lasting commitment. Learn More ». History and Culture Boarding Schools The boarding school experience for Indian children began in when the Bureau of Indian Affairs established the first Indian boarding school on the Yakima Indian Reservation in the state of Washington. Shop Now ». Join our Circle of Friends - make a monthly gift!
Success Stories. How to Help. Annie Wright School, Tacoma, Washington. Overview: The school was established by an Episcopal bishop. James Paddock with the financial support of businessman Charles Wright. Bishop Paddock named the school in honor of Wright's daughter Annie. The school was a girls' school until the earthquake of damaged Lowell School, the local boys' school.
AWS set up temporary quarters for boys. The coeducational program expanded to 8th grade in the s. In this article we examine five more remarkable private schools which were established with a vision and supported with munificence. The Phillips Family which established the Phillips Academies at Exeter and Andover back in the 18th century had the purest of motives in mind. They understood that a well-educated citizenry would ensure the future of the very young United States of America.
What was taught in these early schools? Bear in mind that there were no schools in America when the colonists arrived. As a result, the early settlers did not have to follow traditions or laws governing the education of their children.
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