DCHP-2

residential school DCHP-2 (October 2016)

• n. — recently historical, euphemism, Aboriginal

  a boarding school for Aboriginal children intended to isolate them from their families and assimilate them into mainstream culture.

  Type: 6. Memorial — Outside of Canada, a residential school refers to a school where pupils live during the academic year. In Canada, the term residential school, however, is associated with the injustice perpetrated against Aboriginal peoples by the Canadian government and various religious organizations. Many people saw the schools as the best way to move supposedly primitive Aboriginal people into the modern world. First opened in the 1870s, with attendance made compulsory in 1920, residential schools prohibited children from practicing their cultural traditions and speaking their own languages (Walker 2009: 1). More than 150,000 Aboriginal children were forcibly taken from their homes and prepared to work as domestic servants or labourers. The children often suffered physical, verbal, mental and sexual abuse (see the 1992 quotation). The decision to close residential schools was first taken in 1969, but the last residential school closed only in 1996 (see Canadian Encyclopedia reference).
  
  The residential school policy has had a lasting negative impact on Aboriginal communities in particular but also on Canada as a whole (see the 2006 and 2013 quotations). As Walker (2009: 10) observes in a report published by the Library of Parliament, the profound trauma resulting from generations of abuse in residential schools has been "linked to other social and psychological problems involving alcoholism, drug abuse, depression, suicide, prostitution, gambling, homelessness, sexual abuse, violence, poverty, lack of parenting skills, and lack of a capacity to sustain healthy families and communities" (see Parliament of Canada reference). Moreover, residential schools and the attitudes and policies that engendered them have been largely responsible for the near extinction of almost all Aboriginal languages in Canada (Walker 2009: 7). Today, the residential school system in Canada is considered a form of genocide, having been labelled so by critics and politicians alike, such as former Prime Minister Paul Martin (see CBC reference) and former Grand Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Matthew Coon Come (see IRSSS reference).
  
  On 11 June 2008, the Canadian government issued a formal apology for the residential school system. Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized on behalf of all Canadians, acknowledging that many children died while attending residential schools, many were abused, and all were “deprived of the care and nurturing of their parents, grandparents and communities” (see AANDC reference). Harper asked for “forgiveness of the Aboriginal peoples of this country for failing them so profoundly” (see Prime Minister of Canada reference). Note that this apology has been criticized because it is seen as treating residential schools as a historical anomaly, rather than part of a sustained and deliberate government policy. The cultural impact of the residential school system in Canada is demonstrated by the continued high frequency of the term in Canada (see Chart 1), which is significant given that these schools have not been in operation since the mid-1990s. The more specific term, "Indian residential school", is even more prevalent in Canada (see Chart 2). Strictly speaking, the change in meaning from 'boarding school' to 'institution of forced assimilation' is also, in addition to being a Canadianism of Type 6 - Memorial, also Type 3 - Semantic Change.
  
  See also Gage-5, s.v. "residential school", which is marked "Cdn. North.", ITP Nelson, s.v. "residential school", which is marked "Canadian", COD-2, s.v. "residential school", which is marked "Cdn hist.", and OED-3, s.v. "residential school" (a), which is marked "Canad.".

  See also: Sixties Scoop  Truth and Reconciliation Commission  residential school survivor  reconciliation week  assimilation  reconciliation  missing and murdered women  First Nations language  Aboriginal language  

  • Indian (& Eskimo) Residential School is the older euphemism; the plain residential school became popular after World War II.

  • 1919  WANTED - EXPERIENCED TEACHER; senior room; Indian residential school; grades 4 to 8; salary $1,000 to married man; $300 to single man or lady; good house or good board and lodging at reasonable rates... 
  • 1923  The Clayton Company of Winnipeg is being awarded the contract for the Indian residential school near Edmonton. 
  • 1932  The death occurred Friday afternoon at the Indian residential school here of Mary Etta Vale, wife of Canon A. J. Vale, principal of the school.
  • 1945  Guest preacher at St. George's church Sunday at 7 p.m. will be Rev. H. A. Alderwood, secretary of the Indian and Eskimo residential school commission.
  • 1954  Prior to that, there were no educational facilities for Metis and whites in the area, and Treaty Indians went to residential schools at Sturgeon Landing and Prince Albert.
  • 1964  On the day of the opening of this first residential school for Indians in all northern Quebec, in 1930, not a single child from Fort George appeared, the parents having been told that nuns mistreated children.
  • 1965  In comparison with public schools for whites, the Indian day and residential schools were of poor quality.
  • 1978  Magnus James says since the children have gone to residential school, he notices they cannot take care of themselves in the bush.
  • 1987  But that was in the 1940s. By the 1960s, residential schools were being replaced by "boarding programs" that sent native children from remote areas to schools in urban areas, where the children were billeted, often in the homes of strangers. 
  • 1992  Violence panel prepared for horror stories: "terrible legacy" of residential schools emerges at hearings 
  • 1997  The federal government's old policy of requiring aboriginal children to attend residential schools is "a huge black mark on Canadian society," says Indian Affairs Minister Jane Stewart. 
  • 2006  I am old and blind but I don't need eyes to see that the abuse of residential school victims is still going on. 
  • 2013  [First Nations leaders are demanding an apology from the federal government after it was revealed that Canada ran nutritional experiments on malnourished aboriginal children and adults during and after the Second World War. Recently published research by Canadian food historian Ian Mosby has revealed that at least 1,300 aboriginal people -- most of them children -- were used as test subjects in the 1940s and '50s by researchers looking at the effectiveness of vitamin supplements. The research began in 1942 on about 300 Cree in Norway House in northern Manitoba. Plans were later developed for research on about 1,000 hungry aboriginal children in six residential schools in Port Alberni, B.C., Kenora, Ont., Shubenacadie, N.S., and Lethbridge, Alta.] 
  • 2013  The Indian Residential School system operated in Canada from 1875-1996. For much of this history they forcibly removed Aboriginal children as young as five years old from their families for relocation to distant schools. Often children did not return for many years, and many did not return at all: the mortality rates in some schools at times were over 50%. Students routinely experienced many forms of abuse, including physical, psychological, and sexual abuse, and the effects on survivors of the schools and their home communities were profound. Many returning students had difficulty reintegrating into their communities and passed the abusive behaviours they experienced on to subsequent generations. Even today many communities are working continuously to recover from these effects and from others, such as the loss of language and cultural continuity, that this system produced. 
  • 2015  Paul Leroux, a former dormitory supervisor at a northern Saskatchewan Indian Residential School, has been ordered to return to prison to serve a longer sentence for the sexual abuse of boys at the Beauval school in the 1960s.