Education in Canada has continued to evolve over time to meet the needs of a growing and changing population. An important question we must ask is whether or not these changes have been beneficial for all of Canada’s citizens. This paper will examine how education structures in Canada have historically undermined the cultural identity of Aboriginal peoples and continue to manifest themselves in new forms of colonial control. Generalized traditional First Nations education practices will be used as a framework for comparison with the Residential School System. This comparison will be used to argue that Residential Schools disrupted cultural teachings and have created lasting negative impacts on First Nations cultures and communities.
Traditional First Nations education will be examined first by discussing the historical role of community, oral traditions, and the types of disciplines taught. Ecological and holistic approaches to education lay the foundation for most forms of traditional teachings in Aboriginal communities. This section seeks to give a very broad overview of the many diverse and unique Aboriginal groups within Canada by highlighting key components and similarities of these varying cultures.
The essence of the Residential School System in Canada will be examined next. This segment seeks to compare how volatile and drastic these educational reforms were to traditional Aboriginal culture and identity. The Residential School System sought to re-socialize and reshape children into the European agricultural, linguistic, and religious mold. The primary goal was radical cultural change by turning the “savage child” into a “civilized adult”. The negative effects of Residential Schools are a tragic part of Canadian history, but are not relegated to the past. Their impacts are still greatly felt across Aboriginal communities today, yet the history of the Residential School System seems to be forgotten in Ontario classrooms.
The third section of the paper will examine the current Ontario curriculum in terms of the content of the Canadian Residential School System. By examining the evolution of course texts between 1988 and 2010, teacher resources, and the content in courses, this section will point out the minimal efforts made to educate Canadian citizens on an instrumental part of our history.
Finally, this paper will discuss how the ideologies of the Residential School System – assimilation, domination and oppression – have manifested themselves in modern education structures. Eurocentric views continue to dominate education structures resulting in a whitewashing of the Ontario curriculum and a general lack of funding for reserve schools. This has resulted in students being forced to leave their homes to attain secondary school education – a startlingly similar process to the Residential Schools themselves.
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