Residential Schools In Residential Schools

1386 Words3 Pages

Did you know Aboriginal children make up only 4% of the national population? (Bird &Macadam, 83). This is not a very large number but 80-95% of that number 4% of children was sexually abused. This number is so high because these children were not treated equally like other nationalities. They were placed in residential schools, where priests, nuns and other people could get away with inappropriate actions, simply because these were Aboriginal children. Residential schools were designed to present children with a new way of living so they could make their own decision on how they would like to live after examining other options but rather than benefiting these children, it scarred them for many, many generations. These schools were nowhere …show more content…

The way these kids grew up, with incest, sexual and physical abuse and brutal punishments led to poor parenting skills which damaged future generations. We all know drinking during pregnancy greatly affects babies but these people did not only drink as pregnant adults, most started drinking at the age of 11. The Aboriginal adults that became parents were not capable of raising their children properly because they did not know how to show affection or relate to their kids on any level (Fournier, 83). When the parents were younger and in the residential schools they could not bond with anyone which also led them to become incapable of bonding with their children (Fournier, 83). An even more sad fact is that some Aboriginal kids literally had no concept of what family was (Tunstall 112). These kids did not know what a dad is, what he should say, what he should do or what his ole was. This was a result of being taken away from their family and put in a residential school. Some kids did have family however it was not technically their family. Social workers thought it was a good idea to place these children in middle-class white families. However this isolated the kids more and made them more vulnerable than they were in the residential schools. They were still abused in these home (sexually and physically and were treated as not even …show more content…

Some of (most of) the people on the residential schools took the pain out on themselves which led to gasoline-sniffing addictions, drug abuse and alcohol abuse. The abuse of drugs and alcohol only made them more vulnerable. You cannot erase the damage done or make someone forget about all of the times they were hit, raped or discriminated against. A large amount of these people have post-traumatic stress disorder, panic attacks, insomnia, uncontrollable anger, addictions, eating disorder, etc. and none of which can be fixed by an apology or programs (Johnston, 51. There has been at least 5 or 6 generations affected by the ripple effect of residential schools, turning into angry, poorly educated and unexperienced-in-parenting strangers. The punishment these people faced also stuck with them for long time, they were humiliated for doing simple things that they were unreasonably punished for. Aboriginal people suffered through a lot, facing discrimination, deculturalization and abuse and many managed to survive. These people should not have grown up this way, surrounded by people they cannot trust, incest, rapists and abusers. They should not have been forced into an unsafe learning environment that did anything but teach them but rather scar them for life. A school should not scar generations and generations of people,

Open Document