Where are the Children?

Even though the total number of residential school students represents less than 10 percent of the Canadian Aboriginal population, it must be recognized that it was not only the students themselves who have dealt with the outcomes of their educational experience. The effects of the residential school experience have been long term and far reaching, with the individuals, the families, and the communities all feeling repercussions from these events.

The Individual
While it must be said that not all residential school students viewed their experience in a negative light, it is true that the majority of survivors share stories of "loneliness, harsh discipline and abuse."

The initial difficulty was experienced on the first day of school, when children were often forcibly removed from their parents and families and taken far from home. Children were isolated in schools that were hundreds of miles from their communities and were given no contact with their parents for the duration of the school year. In some cases, children were kept at the school year round, and it was many years before these students saw their parents and families again. For some, by the time they were released from the school and returned to their homes, their parents were gone and these students had no family left to speak of.

In addition to the separation from the people and places of their homes, students were separated from their culture, language, and traditions. Ceremonies and other forms of spirituality were forbidden, replaced by the Christian teaching of whatever religious group was responsible for the running of the school. Because the government believed that the language used by the larger society was essential for the students to participate in the economy of the country once they graduated, English or French were the only languages the students were allowed to speak. For arriving students who did not understand English the language, there was an added burden to the alien atmosphere of the school system. Punishment for speaking their language was not understood, because the punishment was couched in English words of discipline that the children had never heard before. "A variety of punishments were reserved for those who failed to observe [the language] rule, ranging from beatings to the shaving of one's head."

Children were continually reminded that they, as Indians, were culturally, socially, and economically inferior to "white" people and were made to feel ashamed of their parents, their ancestors, and their heritage. Above all, the requirements of discipline were stringently enforced and transgressors were dealt with swiftly and severely. Researchers and ethnographers have documented "cases of children being beaten, confined in dark closets, sexually assaulted, or forced to remain kneeling with arms outstretched for a prolonged period of time." Every minor infraction of the rules was punished, with the most severe punishments reserved for those students who attempted to run away.

Many of the schools depended upon their farms and work placements to provide funding for the operation of the school. For some students, working as day labourers for the school took up all of their time and there was little or no academic instruction ever provided. The work that was expected of the students, along with religious instruction and other required activities prevented them from participating in anything resembling free time or play. "It is understandable why many survivors feel they were robbed of their childhood."

In addition to all of the work and indoctrination, there was also the extremely high incidence of disease among the children in the schools. Tuberculosis was rampant and mortality rates at some school were as high as 50%. Loneliness and fear as constant companions during the important formative years of childhood cannot help but be carried over into the adult lives of those who survived.

While each child's experience was unique, there are commonalities among the responses to what was experienced. Researchers have identified many similarities in the responses and symptoms of survivors once they left the residential school system. Post traumatic stress disorder is often cited as a result of being in the schools, with symptoms including "nightmares, sleep problems, blackouts, apathy and depression."

Ineffective coping mechanisms such as alcohol and drug abuse, spousal and family abuse, and self esteem issues have been common behaviour patterns for many survivors. As well, sexual abuse and incest have also been reported by and among former students. The mortality rate of residential school survivors has also been very high, with incidences of suicide and alcohol related deaths significantly higher than national averages.

The Family
For residential school survivors, the effects on the family have been felt by parents, spouses, and children through several generations. Parents saw their children removed from their homes, in some cases never to return. The parents of the school children were not given any options, but were forced to relinquish their sons and daughters to the authorities or face criminal charges and fines. These parents did not necessarily understand why their children were being taken and were more confused when the children returned to them with hatred and distaste for their families and ways of life.

The families bore the brunt of the students' feelings of alienation, shame, and anger in all its forms and guises. There were no boundaries to who would suffer at home for those feelings generated in the students by life in the school.

In the school system, students did not learn how to be part of a family. They did not learn how to parent or how to love appropriately. These were things that children normally learned from their parents. Being removed before these lessons could be taught resulted in generations of people who did not know how to be a father or a mother, or how to handle conflict within the family in a constructive and loving way. The resulting behaviours have lead to "high rates of family breakdown and divorce."

Lack of parenting skills is perhaps one of the most profound outcomes of the residential school system. Survivors of the schools know only the rigid, authoritarian, emotionally distant discipline of the teachers and caretakers in the schools. This became the way many of them controlled their own families. As each person learns to parent from their parents, so the effects of poor parenting skills became a legacy of successive generations. Several writers have noted "how dysfunctional patterns of behaviour may be seen in the adult children of former students, leading them to conclude that: 'native child-rearing patterns have been indelibly marked by residential schools in ways that will last for generations."

The Community
The reason d'être of the residential school system was ultimately to remove entirely Aboriginal cultures from the Canadian landscape. To that end, individual students were removed from their homes and families and reprogrammed to think and act in the "white" way. While this attempt at assimilation obviously failed spectacularly, the outcome for most Aboriginal communities was highly significant and still reverberates today.

Many communities were devastated by language and culture loss through the removal of the young people. These children had not yet learned all there was to know, and by the time they returned to the community, they did not want to know about their language, culture, and traditions. The shame they were educated to feel precluded their participation in anything resembling "Indian" ways. This resulted in the permanent loss of several dialects and languages, and some of the meanings of traditional ceremonies and cultural markers.

As well, many communities are affected by the legacy of physical and sexual abuse that is having a devastating effect upon the whole community. Unfortunately, these social ills have created barriers to healing within the communities, prolonging the negative and preventing the positive results of communal healing.

On the positive side, many residential school survivors have embraced their Aboriginal heritage as a means of recovering from the horrific experiences of their childhoods. Together, many communities have found this cultural resurgence to be a welcome path to reclaiming the entire community.

Finally, the shared experiences of the residential school survivors have provided a link between communities with a "network of loyalties and political activists throughout Indian country. The mutually shared stories became the basis of a new discourse and a common issue on the contemporary political agenda."