This is actually a new piece of information to me. I didn’t know that the schools were also actively trying to affect the students’ culture at home as well. If that were to happen in today’s classrooms, the whole school would have been charged.

As a person who lost their own first language, it’s so disheartening. I can relate since when I had started school, I had no idea how to speak English and had to learn, losing what I had spoken before. It was very lonely and I can imagine these kids were so scared and alone, being unable to communicate, especially since the staff was so cruel.

I’m really glad that there were redeemable teachers at these horrible places but I still find this statement incredibly sad because it shouldn’t be so uplifting to be treated as an ordinary person. It just goes to show how these children were so dehumanized and abused in these places.

I find this extremely unsettling. This is essentially just the school adopting the child or rather “transferring responsibilities” of the child to the school, effectively not making them belong to the parents. This is another form of isolation done by residential schools.

I’m also taking an Indigenous studies course and we had just recently learned that even though the government did give money to the schools, they were seriously underfunded and actually couldn’t afford to keep up the school, therefore leading to the free labour of the students.