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Indian Education Indian Residential Schools“A liberating education nurtures empathy, a commitment to community, and a sense of self-worth and dignity.”1

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“state policies and actions…have too frequently prevented indigenous peoples from receiving a truly empowering education. This has been achieved in a variety of ways: • passively by ignoring or failing to consider the

economic, cultural, and linguistic realities of indigenous peoples and

• actively by deliberately minimizing or excluding aspects of their language and culture from educational program design and execution.” 2

“[D]iscrimination in education comes in many forms, including most prominently the denial of mother tongue-medium education for indigenous children.”3

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“[Indigenous] children usually were kept at boarding school for eight years, during which time they were not permitted to see their parents, relatives or friends. Anything Indian – dress, language, religious practices, even outlook on life . . . was uncompromisingly prohibited. Ostensibly educated . . . in the English language, wearing store-bought clothes and with their hair short and their emotionalism torn down, the boarding-school graduates were sent out either to make their way in a White world that did not want them, or to return to a reservation to which they were now foreign.”4

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Justifications and Rationale• Doctrine of Discovery 1493

• European nations believed that they had the God given right to assert sovereign claim and jurisdiction over all lands and territories outside Europe

• Church• 1537 Papal Bull declaring that Indians were human beings

• Identified human rights Indians possessed• While Indians possessed human souls, those souls did not possess

the salvation inherent in the knowledge of God or Jesus Christ• Relegated Indians to a position of racial and spiritual inferiority

relative to Europe’s peoples• State Authorities viewed Indians as uncivilized• Assumptions of Church & State - salvation and civilization

of Indians

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RCAP (1996) Indian Residential SchoolsVol. 1, Chapter 10, • A.J. Miller pp. 309-394• Canada’s Policy in relation to Indians, Metis, Inuit• Canada adopts assimilation position

• Address relationship to Indians• Sec 91(24) of Constitution Act 1867

• Canada’s goal: non-aboriginal, Christian mono-community• Education is the “best method to achieve goal”• 1870-1910 - Period of assimilation where the

clear objective of both missionaries and government was to assimilate Aboriginal children into the lower fringes of mainstream society (AFN website)

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Birth of Residential Schools in Canada• Davin Report (1879) tabled in House of Commons

• Recommends Industrial (Residential) School model implemented with success in US, photo Carlisle Industrial School

• Became policy in Canada

http://blogs.dickinson.edu/hist-118pinsker/2010/10/11/carlisle-indian-industrial-school/

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Indian Education Policy in late 1800s• Implemented IRS in 1892 by contractual

arrangement• Four churches

• Anglican, Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian• Radically re-socialize children

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• Churches manage and operate • Federal government provides capital and funding

• Based on numbers of children in the school• Peak 1931: 80 IRS in operation with 17,000 children

enrolled• Most provinces except, PEI, NB, NFLD (not yet a province)• Reports: mismanaged, under-funded, inferior education,

known mistreatment, abuse of children

Blue Quills First Nations College 2012 9Link to website

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The Vision of IRS• Justify removal of children, family disruption• Develop pedagogy for re-socialization• Integrate graduates into non-Aboriginal world

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Justification: Emancipate Children• Progress

• ‘unfit’ parents, separation necessary• Dion-Stout

• Dis-establishing communities via assimilation• French speaker

• Curriculum web Phil Morin• ½ day religious study, reading, arithmetic

sample curriculum• ½ day of work

• Field work for boys• Housekeeping for girls

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Goffman’s Total Institutions• Analyzed institutional practices employed to bring

about psychosocial effects in target groups • did not study IRS• Homes for the aged, asylums, private boarding schools,

monasteries, prisons, concentration camps• ‘walled off’ from world at large

• Enforced and maintained an extreme power disparity between inmate population and smaller supervisory staff

• “In our society, they are the forcing houses for changing persons; each is a natural experiment of what can be done to the self.”

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Institutional Tactics• The recruit comes into the establishment with a

conception of himself• Begins a series of abasements, degradations,

humiliations and profanations of self. His self is systematically, if often unintentionally mortified.

• Admission procedures• Stripped of his possessions• Replacements made by the establishment

• Standard issue, clearly marked, periodic searches, confiscations, property dispossession

• Sequential scheduling of the individual’s roles – role dispossession

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IRS Graduates to assimilate through enfranchisement• Provisions of Indian Act, voluntarily1. Employment placements in non-aboriginal

towns/cities• None were created due to racism/prejudice

2. Initial policy was aborted 1898 – smart community-based strategy

3. File Hills Colony experiment 1901• Too costly, project abandoned

4. Duncan Campbell Scott – oxen, farm implements, loan and return to reserves upon graduation

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Canadian boarding schoolsthey “represented a ‘system of persistent neglect and debilitating abuse . . . . The schools produced thousands of [indigenous] individuals incapable of leading healthy lives or contributing positively to their communities.”11 The children suffered both cultural and familial dislocation, as well as physical and psychological abuse: “Examples abound from all over the world of indigenous . . . children having experienced serious physical punishment (both in residential and in day schools), lack of food, sexual abuse and so forth…. Many such children who have suffered such education are [also] permanently alienated from both their native language and culture and their families and home communities.”12 Moreover, the harm caused by these educational policies has been intergenerational. For instance, children raised or educated in these schools knew very little of life in a “family” and as parents themselves had no familial or community patterns to follow in rearing their own children. Since the economic and social well-being of an indigenous group often centers around familial or kinship networks, the physical, cultural, and linguistic separation of indigenous children from these networks has contributed substantially to the dire socioeconomic conditions facing some indigenous peoples today. As one indigenous leader described it “the chances of [indigenous] survival are significantly reduced if our children, the only means for the transmission of [our] heritage, are . . . denied exposure to the ways of their People.”5

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Change of Policy• Residential Schools, obvious failures

• Unqualified teaching staff• Beyond grade 8 (100 students)• Beyond grade 12 (none)• Curriculum/pedagogy inappropriate for Indian children

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1948 Undercurrent of Change• Integration

• New method of assimilation• Hoey (1943) educate parents and children together• Less costly, establish school committees• Emphasis on Language Arts - English

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IRS as Supplementary Services• Welfare function for category 3

• ‘children from abusive homes’• Provincial child welfare agencies cooperate• 1969 Government formally ends contracts with

Churches• Blue Quills turned over to local control 1971• Government continues to fund residences until

1996

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Education of Inuit Children• Labrador (1791) Moravians taught in Inuktitut

• By 1800’s all hymns translated into Inuktitut by 1840, most Intuit were literate

• 1949 NFLD joined Confederation • Provided education in English only

• Northern Canada, Inuit in Residential School, mandatory schooling by 1950

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Education of Metis Children• Emphasized religious study in addition to

arithmetic• Some attended Residential Schools in the NWT• Sons of affluent Metis received formal education

privileges in Eastern Canada and England• In 1936, 90% of Metis children had no schooling

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Raphael Lemkin• Chrisjohn, Chapter 4

• IRS as a genocidal policy vs. the Standard Account• The system was sick vs. the Indians are sick

• Lemkin coined the word genocide (1944) "Genocide has two phases: one, destruction of the national pattern of the oppressed group: the other, the imposition of the national pattern of the oppressor."

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Impacts of IRS: Historic Trauma• Loss of family Dion-Stout clip

• Abandonment & Alienation• Break down of family system; Parenting roles

• Loss of tradition, language, culture • Sub-oppression or Internalized Oppression

• Form of self-hate (abuses, p, m, e, s)• Not wanting to see others succeed or do better• lateral violence, passive-aggressive

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According to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (1996: 379):

“The survivors of the Indian residential school system have, in many cases, continued to have their lives shaped by the experiences in these schools. Persons who attended these schools continue to struggle with their identity after years of being taught to hate themselves and their culture. The residential school led to a disruption in the transference of parenting skills from one generation to the next. Without these skills, many survivors have had difficulty in raising their own children. In residential schools, they learned that adults often exert power and control through abuse. The lessons learned in childhood are often repeated in adulthood with the result that many survivors of the residential school system often inflict abuse on their own children. These children in turn use the same tools on their children ”

Result: Intergenerational Trauma

Monchalin, L. Criminology Faculty: Kwantlen Polytechnic University

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Colonialism on Traditional Values and Culture

Residential School Experiences Multiple and Interrelated Risk

Factors

Monchalin, L. Criminology Faculty: Kwantlen Polytechnic University

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Aboriginal Peoples Risk Factors Related to Crime

Individual Factors: Social Factors:Interpersonal Skills: Families:-Poor Self Management-Social Skill Deficits-Aggressiveness

-Inconsistent and Uncaring Parenting (neglect and abuse)-Lack of Pro-Social Models-Family Violence and Crime-Dysfunctional, Disorganized and Disconnected Families

Cognitive Skills: Employment and Education:-Limited Cognitive Abilities (including Fetal Alcohol Syndrome)

-Academic Failure-Truancy and Dropping out of School-Unemployment

Substance Misuse: Social Networks:-Addictions to Alcohol-Addictions to Drugs

-Delinquent Friends-Gang Membership-Alienation-Social Exclusion and Marginalization-Lacking Cultural Identity and Pride

Mental Health: Community:-Poor Mental Health and Health Related Issues that go Untreated-Hopelessness

-Community/Neighbourhood Disorganization-Lack of Collective Efficacy-Extreme Poverty and Poor Living Conditions-High Residential Mobility Between Reserves and City-Racism and Discrimination

Monchalin, L. Criminology Faculty: Kwantlen Polytechnic University

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Canada and Church Apologies• United Church (1986 and 1998)• Oblates of Mary Immaculate (1991); Roman Catholic

(2009)• Anglican (1993)• Presbyterian (1994)• Statement of Reconciliation (1998)• RCMP (2004)• Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement (2006)

• Legal document: Federal government, Churches, FN Organizations• CEP, IAP (physical & sexual abuses), litigation

• Prime Minister Harper (2008) 6:45

• Truth and Reconciliation Commission

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Constitutional Act, 1982• Section 35 (1) and (2) set

out the protections of the Aboriginal peoples under Canada’s highest law.

• “The existing Aboriginal and treaty rights of the Aboriginal peoples (Indian, Inuit and Métis peoples) of Canada and hereby recognized and affirmed.”

Ka Na Ta Conversations• J.S. Henderson• J.R. Saul • D. Courchene Jr.• O. Mercredie

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References1. Indigenous Knowledge and Education: Sites of Struggle, Strength, and Survivance, p. 160 (Malia Villegas, Sabina Rak Neugebauer & Kerry R. Venegas, eds., Harvard University Press 2008) [hereinafter Indigenous Knowledge and Education]. 2. See generally Jose Martinez Cobo, Study of the problem of discrimination against indigenous populations, Chapter XIII (Education) and Volume V (Conclusions, Proposals and Recommendations), U.N. Commission on Human Rights, 36th Sess., Provisional Agenda Item 11, UN Docs. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1983/21/Add.2 and E/CN.4/Sub.2/1986/7/Add.4 (June 28, 1983) [hereinafter Martinez Cobo Chapter XIII and Martinez Cobo Volume V]. 3. Conclusions And Recommendations Of The Expert Seminar on Indigenous Peoples and Education, at para. 10. 4. Peter Farb, Man's Rise to Civilization 257-59 (1968), cited in Lorie M. Graham, “The Past Never Vanishes”: A Contextual Critique of the Existing Indian Family Doctrine , 23 Am. Indian L. Rev. 1, 16 (1998/1999) [hereinafter The Past Never Vanishes]. English only language regulations were promulgated and, for a period of time, federal law permitted the withholding of treaty-based government rations to American Indian families who failed to send their children to government-funded or government- run schools. To learn more about the boarding school experiences, see generally Jeffery Hamley, Federal Off- Reservation Boarding Schools for Indians (Oct. 1986) (unpublished Ed.D. dissertation, Harvard University) (on file with Gutman Library, Harvard University).

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References Continued4. Hearings Before the Subcomm. on Indian Affairs and Public Lands of the House Comm. on Interior and Insular Affairs, 95th Cong. 191-92 (1978), quoted in Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians v. Holyfield, 490 U.S. 30, 34-35 (1989), cited in The Past Never Vanishes, at 32.