The Heart-Wrenching Truth about Residential Schools

Angélica Boucher • September 29, 2021

The Heart-Wrenching Truth about Residential Schools

The Heart-Wrenching Truth About Residential Schools

By: Angélica Boucher

(Photo from National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation)

Content Warning: This blog contains information that might be upsetting for some readers. The topic of residential schools is discussed in detail alongside personal accounts.

To begin, I would like to acknowledge that I am not a residential school survivor and thankfully, none of my Indigenous ancestors were forced to attend residential schools. Therefore, it is not my place to recount the nightmarish experiences that children underwent while at residential school. What I may share though, are the facts and the words of those who are survivors.

· More than 150 000 First Nations, Inuit and Métis children were forced to attend
· 150 residential schools throughout Canada
· 25 residential schools in Alberta
· More than 150 years of operation
· 80 000 residential school survivors alive today
· More than 6000 children died in residential schools

For the majority of Canadians, these facts have been hard to acknowledge. That is, until the bodies of 215 children were uncovered on the grounds of former Kamloops Indian Residential School. Indigenous peoples already knew or had strong suspicions that the bodies of their fellow classmates, siblings, friends, and children were there. As Elder Ekti Margaret Cardinal stated during one of our conversations, “we have been telling people [about the abuse] for years, but they didn’t listen.”

Despite the many accounts of survivors sharing similar experiences of atrocities committed in residential school, Canada needed the bones of children to start the acknowledgment process. Even then, Richard (Steinhauer) Swaren, a Knowledge Keeper from Saddle Lake First Nation, explains that, “when the first 215 children were discovered, it made media all over the world. We are at 7000 plus now and it is already old news.”

Ekti invites us to reflect on “how wrong is it that it was kept silent?” We need to break the nation-wide silence that has persisted.

What was the purpose of residential schools?

As a child, Elder and tipi maker Ekti Margaret Cardinal was forced to attend Blue Quills Indian Residential School for ten years. When asked about her experience in boarding school, Ekti commented that “all the focus was to get rid of the Indian in you.”

The purpose was to assimilate and legally extinguish Indigenous peoples. Although residential schools started as early as 1831, government funded industrial schools (or residential schools) started later in the 1880s. The last federally funded residential school closed in 1996. An important influence on the funding of residential schools was a report written by Nicholas Flood Davin in 1879, who’s report was commissioned by Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald. Based on the United States industrial school model, Davin expressed the need for such school in order to “civilize” Indigenous peoples. Of note, in the Davin report, it is written that “the aim of education must be to destroy the Indian.” The intent cannot be clearer than that statement. To read the Davin Report, see the reference list below.

From day one, abuse was present, as children were ripped from their home, their families, their culture, and their language, often without warning. Immediately, children were experiencing emotional neglect, and often, would be victim to various other forms of abuse (i.e., verbal, sexual, physical). Residential schools were generally in poor conditions, as they were underfunded, overcrowded, and staffed with underqualified educators. And be assured, the government knew about these awful conditions due to written reports, such as the ones written by Dr. Peter Bryce in 1909 and 1927. However, the government deliberately chose to ignore them.

As for the quality of education, Ekti explained that before the 1950s, which was when her mother had attended boarding school, children would get at most three hours of education in a day. The rest of the day was spent doing work and chores. Therefore, the purpose was not to provide Indigenous children with an adequate and/or similar education to that of other children in Canada. Clearly, residential schools had more resemblance to workhouses or assimilation camps than schools.

If you would like to learn more about Ekti’s boarding school experience, click here [BB2] to read her interview with the Native Women’s Association of Canada Magazine KCI-NWESQ.

Did the loss end there?

Over the past few months, I have had the chance to converse with many Indigenous community members throughout Alberta. A common theme that tends to surface in our discussions is this sense of fear. Understandably so, as the loss and abuse of Indigenous children did not end or begin with the residential schools. As Richard expressed, “[Colonialism] accomplished its goal through Indian Residential School, through Indian Day School, and continues to do so through all its other systems, including Child and Family Services, the prison system, the legal system, and the medical system.”

Darren Weaselchild, a Knowledge Keeper from Siksika First Nation describes Child and Family Services as the new Indian Residential School System. He explains that when children are taken from Indigenous families, they are typically put into non-Indigenous homes where they must conform to mainstream society and do not get the opportunity to know their roots. Darren adds a heartfelt message: “we would like our children to be raised with their culture, raised with their braids, and raised with their elders.”

“As a people, we are like the buffalo”

The National Truth and Reconciliation Day is a time to commemorate the children that survived the Indian Residential School System and those who did not.

As Ekti says, “we need to think of all the people that died;” we must remember them. However, I would argue that it is equally as important to reflect on the pure strength that Indigenous peoples had to demonstrate in order to withstand the continuous effort to eradicate them.

During our conversation, Ekti recounted that “in boarding school, what really supported me, was prayer. You had to believe that things are going to happen, that you are going to survive. I had to believe that I was going to survive this and not let go.” As a form of punishment for “doing something Indigenous,” Ekti was forced to stand in front of a pillar wall for up to three hours. She explained that in those moments, in her mind, she would travel back to her grandparents, to her parents, or to a nice summer fishing. Ekti explained that “if you only think of negative things, then they have control of you.” She did not let that happen, she thought of happy moments, and that helped her survive. Stories of strength, such as Ekti’s, also need to be remembered and honoured, as it is that strength and bravery that allowed Indigenous peoples to exist today.

I would like to end this blog on a beautiful teaching that was generously shared with me by Darren Weaselchild. “There’s a story of the buffalo herd. The buffalo herd will not sit and wait when there’s a storm. Instead, they would go and push through it until they got to the other side. As a people, we are like the buffalo.”

We thank the Elders who have shared their knowledge and experiences with us for this interview.

References and Resources:

Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre. (n.d.). Davin Report. The University of British Columbia. https://collections.irshdc.ubc.ca/index.php/Detail/objects/9427

Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre. (n.d.). Indian Residential School. The University of British Columbia. https://irshdc.ubc.ca/learn/indian-residential-schools/

Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre. (n.d.). The story of a national crime: being an appeal for justice to the Indians of Canada. The University of British Columbia. https://collections.irshdc.ubc.ca/index.php/Detail/objects/9434

KCI-NIWESQ. (2021, August). Three Residential School Survivors and the Brutality that Shaped their Lives. Native Women’s Association of Canada Magazine, 1(5), 9-13. https://issuu.com/kci-niwesq/docs/kci-niwesq-issue_5-august_2021/2

Marshall, T., & Gallant, D. (2012, October 10). Residential Schools in Canada. The Canadian Encyclopedia. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/residential-schools

Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. (2015). Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future: Summary of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. https://ehprnh2mwo3.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Executive_Summary_English_Web.pdf

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AYP

By Angela Hill • January 20, 2023

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By Heather Boonstra • June 16, 2022

Heather Boonstra has recently joined the Imagine Team as our Reflective Practitioner. You may be wondering what exactly a Reflective Practitioner is and to be honest, our team is continually learning as we move forward. This is a truly unique position, and to our knowledge, we are the first non-profit in our sector who has fully integrated this role into our organization. To better explain just what a Reflective Practitioner does, check out this interview with Heather. Why is reflective practice so valuable for individuals and organizations? I just want to start off by saying that I think many people are already engaging in reflective practice, they just may not call it that. I remember the first time I heard about reflective practice training and asked my supervisor if I could attend. She told me that I didn’t need to go because I was already doing it – but what exactly was I doing? I didn’t know! It turns out that what I was doing without realizing that it was good practice, was asking questions of myself, my coworkers and of the families we were supporting; questions that asked us to dig a little deeper into the impact that our words, actions, behaviours and decisions were having on ourselves and those around us. Conversations like this can only take place in an environment of trust because they require a certain level of vulnerability. I believe that intentional, mindful and consistent reflective practice is critical for individuals and organizations who are not merely curious about consequences and impact, but who are committed to adapting what they say and do based on what they learn. What is a Reflective Practitioner? What do you do on a day-to-day basis? As a Reflective Practitioner, I get to bring intentionality and consistency to the questions Imagine asks of themselves and their stakeholders (for example, their participants, funders, community members). I have the honour of watching and listening to this incredibly skilled and passionate team as they create, deliver, reflect, iterate, and then do it all over again based on what they learn. I support Imagine in their collecting and reporting of meaningful, purposeful, culturally responsive data, while at the same time, reminding them that their work also has an impact on their own hearts and minds that they need to pay attention to. Day to day, you can find me working on data collection spreadsheets, developing evaluation questions and frameworks, reading articles on promising evaluation practices and methods, having conversations with Imagine team members (my favourite thing about my job!) and asking reflective questions of myself to help me see what we might be missing, and what else might be important for Imagine to understand. Where did the idea for this position come from? What is the overall vision for the position? The Reflective Practitioner role was born out of Line (Imagine’s Executive Director) and her team placing a high value on evaluation being a naturally occurring part of what they do every day, rather than it being a cumbersome task that they must do. At an Imagine team meeting one day, I expressed that I was having some discomfort with being referred to as “the evaluator” because for this specific work I was doing, it just didn’t sit right with me. I was concerned that people might feel like I was doing something to them, rather than with them, which is the opposite of Imagine’s practice. After some discussion (a very “reflective practice-y” discussion I might add), Line exclaimed, “I think you are our Reflective Practitioner!” This position is brand new, and we are figuring it out as we test it, talk about it, change it and test it again, which makes it beautifully aligned with Imagine’s iterative process philosophy and values of integrity and responsiveness…and that is the overall vision. Robust, trauma-informed, culturally responsive evaluation and reporting, within a culture of reflective inquiry and continuous improvement. What experiences and wisdom do you bring to this role? Ok – I cannot answer this question without first expressing my heartfelt gratitude. I have been so very fortunate over the years to have been surrounded by the cream of the crop work families, colleagues and community champions! They have had my back, supported and encouraged my dreaming, put up with my mess-ups (there have been many), and have “challenged the process” (Kouzes & Pozner) when I needed to be reeled in from the clouds and needed reminders to slow down. I have had 30+ years' worth of individuals, families, children, youth and seniors allowing me to share in their lives and become a small part of their stories. So many of them occupy my thoughts even today because the lessons they taught me are what have equipped me to do what I do now. If I think specifically about my evaluation experiences, a pivotal point for me was when I attended a workshop almost 25 years ago. The presenter, who I am fortunate enough to be able to now call a friend, taught me that evaluation is a form of storytelling. That was a huge shift in my thinking, and one that I needed, as my experience with evaluation to that point had been that evaluation was only about outputs and that there was no room for stories of impact. I thought that that was just the way evaluation was and that I would never enjoy it, because it only told part of the story. I am so glad I was wrong! How do you think other organizations could incorporate aspects of this position into the work they do? I think that the first and most important step to incorporating aspects of this position into an organization’s practice would be to slow right down. This requires consistent intentionality. You will never be able to check this off of your To Do List and call it complete. To slow down and pause, is to be able to notice. To consider. To reflect. To ask questions and look at things from different perspectives. It will always be important to incorporate slowing down into your organization’s culture and to be able to give gentle reminders to one another when the busy-ness of your lives puts you on the hamster wheel! That, coupled with participating in reflective practice and evaluation learning opportunities, and you are well on your way! Please feel welcome to connect with me any time at heather@imagineinstitute.c a with your thoughts or questions!

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Edgewalker Conversations: The Next Step After Intergenerational Wisdom

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By Brianne Burritt • January 3, 2022

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The Creation of Imagine's Newest Training, "Intergenerational Wisdom" - an interview with Angélica Boucher

By Brianne Burritt • November 18, 2021

(photo above - Angélica and her family at a pow-wow) To celebrate the release of our newest training, Intergenerational Wisdom, Angélica Boucher explains the research, connection, and understanding that went into developing a project of this significance. So Angélica, what is Intergenerational Wisdom? Intergenerational Wisdom can be described as the sharing and transmission of knowledge, beliefs, and experiences from one generation to the next. Part of this includes intergenerational trauma where trauma and pain are transmitted through generations. However, there is more to intergenerational wisdom than passing on the hurt; it also includes the transmission of hope, strength, and resilience, which helps break the cycle of trauma. So, by thinking of this as intergenerational wisdom instead of simply intergenerational trauma, it provides a lens where healing is possible despite the hurt that occurred. It allows for hope and strength to transpire. Can you tell us about your process for creating this training? This training was built with the belief that there is resilience in education. Through the sharing of knowledge, it is possible to learn, grow, and find the capacity to create stronger relationships and a healthier future for everyone residing on the lands we share. To create this training in a respectful and authentic way, it was important for me to include the voices of Elders, Knowledge Keepers, and Indigenous community members on topics related to intergenerational wisdom. I spent a lot of time reaching out to community members, building relationships, and interviewing these amazing individuals to be able to incorporate their perspective and wisdom into the training. These interviews were recorded, and I then spent hours creating short videos to add throughout the training, so that their perspectives can be shared in their own voices. I am eternally grateful for the stories and wisdom that was shared through these conversations, and the amount of trust and bravery it took for these generous individuals to share their stories for this training. Creating this training also took a lot of research, compiling information on various topics, including the mental health and physiological impacts of intergenerational trauma and historical trauma, the modes of transmission (genetic, family dynamics, learning and modelling, sociocultural), resilience, and cultural pride. I also read the literature that focused more on how mental health is culturally seen by Indigenous peoples so that I could use a language that is representative of Indigenous world views. I have also compiled documents, documentaries, and research on the events that led to the traumatization of Indigenous communities, which were difficult to read, but was a necessary part of the work. How did you connect with the content that you wanted to share ? Through my family, especially my little brother and my great-grand-parents. I believe that my great-grandparents sent me this job to do, in their memory, as my great-grandpa Eugène Joseph Bédard was part First Native but could not allow that part of himself to exist. For me, doing this training was a way to learn and to connect with him. As people will find out by attending my training, my family was impacted in some ways by intergenerational trauma, especially my little brother. I would say that out of all of us, he is the one that has been wounded by it the most. Yet, despite all the awful things that happened to him in his little life, and despite how many things he struggles with every day, he remains hopeful. He continues to strive to get up and do better the next day. He is my inspiration for the main message of this training, that through all the pain that occurred, there is hope and resilience and that those elements can be shared. As you were working on this training, what inspired you? There were parts of this training that were extremely difficult to create. There were times where tears were shed and other times where my frustration was overwhelming. This is because to understand the current impact of intergenerational trauma on Indigenous peoples, I had to research where the trauma started, and I had to read about the monster that is colonialism. It could get really heavy, especially when thinking of my great-grandfather and the people I’ve built relationships with. What helped me keep going are the conversations I had with community members. They’ve all experienced the impact of historical trauma firsthand and yet, they were all able to identify hope and sources of resilience. It shows the strength. So, while creating this training, I thought of them, and how I want to be able to facilitate this understanding from the rest of Canada or Turtle Island. I hope that I’ve been able to accomplish that and can make them proud. What is something that you learned while researching this training that surprised you? I think that overall, reading the literature has given me a greater appreciation for the important role that communication plays in our lives. As I will explain in greater detail in the training, communication styles between family members can have a huge impact on whether trauma is transmitted or whether sources of resilience can stem from it. Communication styles can change a child’s worldview to a negative and fearful one and can impact behaviour. On the other hand, the lessons found through storytelling, the reconnection to culture and languages (and thus community), and optimism in communication can help people stand up against the trauma. What is your favourite thing about this Intergenerational Wisdom training? My favourite part of this training is the authenticity and that I was able to be creative with it. There is a universality to it, as the science behind intergenerational wisdom and trauma is applicable to any family or group that has experienced a deep wounding. Yet, I love that I was able to weave my family’s story and the story of others throughout this training. My hope is that it will be humanizing experience and that people will be able to connect with the stories shared on a human level. Who do you think would best benefit from taking this training? Anyone, as long as they are coming to the training with an open heart. Truly, this information can help us all as a society to treat one another with more kindness and generosity. It provides a new understanding on the world surrounding us, that the people we see who are wounded or struggling may not only be dealing with their own trauma, but one that may have started generations ago. I think the training will also increase people’s sensitivity to the struggles created by colonialism and therefore encourage non-Indigenous folks to become true allies. I hope that it also changes the stereotypical view of Indigenous peoples as a “broken” people through an understanding that centres strength and resilience. On a personal level, I think this training can also give hope to some people that might feel stuck within the intergenerational trauma of their own families. By being better educated on these subjects, it allows us to have a greater understanding of ourselves and others and from there, a route to move forward. ___________________________________________________________________________________ Thanks to Angélica for sharing her process and findings. It is truly special to have a peek behind the curtain at all the work and research that goes into developing a multi-day training. This session builds off our popular and foundational Trauma-Informed Care and takes on an Indigenous perspective. It includes a combination of science and narratives, allowing for an informative and humanizing experience. We hope you can join us for a two-day Intergenerational Wisdom training in the new year. The first scheduled session runs January 21 and 22, 2022. (interview by Brianne Burritt)