Intended for both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal learners, this course will explore indigenous ways of knowing and how they can benefit all students. Topics include historical, social, and political issues in Aboriginal education; terminology; cultural, spiritual and philosophical themes in Aboriginal worldviews; and how Aboriginal worldviews can inform professional programs and practices, including but not limited to the field of education.
3.4 Ab ed through the wheel Colonial period [Part 2] (12:26)
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From the course by University of Toronto
Aboriginal Worldviews and Education
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From the lesson
A Brief History of Aboriginal Education
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Meet the Instructors
Jean-Paul RestouleAssociate Professor
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
Now I was talking about loss of language and culture but also just, plain old
physical loss of life. There was one audit done, in I think it
was the '20s where the, the, the independent supervising physician, who was
brought in to, to look at the way the schools were run reported that less, or
that less than half survived to graduate. So the numbers of people who died in
schools was huge. When we're talking about the physical
conditions were terrible. I mentioned earlier about inadequate
funding. So malnutrition was something that was
quite common. The kids didn't have, enough nutritious
food to eat. And so they developed a number of maladies
related to malnutrition. Things like tuberculosis were allowed to
kind of spread amongst the, the dormitories.
There are photos of children who clearly have communicable diseases still being in
the classroom, with, with other people. So there was a sense that, I think that,
there was an intent to allow these, these diseases to spread.
And, and infect the children who were also at the school with them.
So it's a place where there was a lot of death and a lot of suffering, and by the
standards that Raphael Lemkin used to define what genocide is, residential
schools fit a number of the important points to kind of indicate this is a
genocide. That, that feeling, that notion of no
control over what went on in the schools is what led a lot of the indigenous people
fighting the residential schools, resisting the residential schools, to,
form a policy, in 1972. So I mean that might be one of the
important points to kind of see a change happening here of Indian control over
Indian education. So Indian control of Indian education, was
a policy document that kind of emerged from Manitoba in the, they had a report
called Wabung or Our Tomorrows and it was adapted and kind of revised for the, the
National Indian Brotherhood, which is the forerunner to the Assembly of First
Nations to be a national policy of Indian control of Indian education.
The two pillars of this document were local control of education and parental
responsibility. So you can kind of see, given the
experiences of residential schooling for many, many years and generations why these
two pillars would be the ones that are promoted by the community itself.
Because they never had that control over what was going on in the schools and
secondly, parents were so excluded from everything.
That parental responsibility was a, was a pillar in Indian control.
Yes. >> I'm just wondering.
What was the urban aboriginal experience with residential schools?
'Because we hear so much about, you know, getting bused in from rural communities in
the north, and abducted from those communities from parents.
Did the same thing happen for aboriginal communities in urban settings like
Toronto? Hm, you know, that's a really good
question and I think, I think you know I haven't looked into that a great deal, but
I think that the urbanization trend, kind of happened overlapping with the, the
changeover of residential schools, kind of, when they started to be phasing out.
So past their peak, is I think the primary urbanization's happened also there were
certainly Indian people in cities at the same time as residential schools.
They were more likely to be non-status Indians.
So this a, a kind of a, a, a, a part of the Indian Act they didn't talk about too
much, which is the enfranchisement provisions, but there were all these
provisions within the Indian Act for removing your Indian status for various
reasons. So if you achieved a certain level of
education or if you served in the military or if you, if you were an Indian woman and
you married a non-Indian man, these were all kind of reasons you could be in
franchise that has received the right to vote in Canada which meant losing your
Indian status, which from the view of the state was kind of like a positive thing
right, hey great you are in franchise. But you know, for a lot of people who want
to maintain that connection to their communities and maintain that identity it,
it, you know, was certainly, it was a loss, right?
So, this applied also to the descendants of people who were in franchise that they,
they were not entitled to be Indians for many years until 1985 when there was
revisions but that's, that's a whole other story.
But that urbanization thing often went with the loss of the status which would
have meant you wouldn't have had to go to the residential schools.
So it's kind of a complicated connection, they're kind of connected in some ways
too, I wonder how many people moved to cities to avoid it.
That, because that could be a way of resisting, maybe.
But one of the things that's kind of relevant here is that you know Indians
unilaterally did not have the right to vote until 1960 in Canada.
So once those changes happened and Indians had the franchise as all Canadian citizens
did at that time, then they also remove some restrictions on lobbying.
Because there were some huge precision in the Indian act in the 1950's that started
to appear and make changes in the '60s. And so some.
One of these is that Indians could now retain legal council.
And, and could assemble in groups larger than 3.
So, that means you can start to organize, alright, politically.
And that's why you see the National Indian Brotherhood come, Come about.
And you see, I mean, there were, there were precursors to that, that kind of
happened after and between the wars, world wars.
But they really kind of take place in the 1960's.
So there's a lot of movement against, the residential schooling, then.
More political power for aboriginal people, and in 1969, you know, one year
after uh,Trudeau came in on this wave of popularity.
And he was promoting the just society and he thought well it's really important that
all Canadians be equal. So we have to remove the Indian Act and
then I don't think he was expecting the wave of opposition to that move.
And it's kind of Confusing to some people because they're like, well aren't you
saying the Indian Act is a huge problem. Well, yes.
But Canada respects that one right. [laugh] If you took it away, what
obligation would they see themselves having to indigenous people.
So it's, I think the reason there was this opposition is it's kind of like the Devil
you know. And at least we can hold Canada's feet to
the fire with this, because it ex, it has a lot of, notions of the kind of
responsibilities Canada has to aboriginal people that they're not recognizing
through treaty. So Indian Act is a way of maintaining
that. It's imperfect, but to just do away with
it would have, and with some of the other provisions of the White Paper of 1969,
there were other problems too. >> I'm just curious with the 1960 right to
vote. >> Yeah.
>> Did they, did aboriginal people have to prove literacy in order to vote, or was
it. >> No I think that's the point when it
became unilateral. Prior to that, some Indians could vote in
some elections and it was based on those kinds of things like literacy and mostly
the same kind of provisions that were in the enfranchisement provisions of the
Indian Act. So [laugh], yeah, but that's when it was
finally, everyone, there's, yeah, there's, there's some exceptions, but, it's, it's,
not that important for this conversation. So when we see this rise against kind of
residential schooling, and one of the solutions that, and this is one of the
things people are talking about, is, kind of goes hand in hand with that just
society idea, is if they had access to the superior schools that are in the province
they can just go to the provincial schools then, you know, they would have equal
opportunity and access. Well, what's very interesting about that
if you have an equity view of things, is you put Indian people.
In a provincial school that has the, the same kind of cultural standards, and
starting points of the Canadian society. It's still an assimilatory curriculum.
It's still an assimilatory process. I've once said, well the difference is
they could go home at night. [laugh] It is better, it's a little bit
better then residential schools, but certainly there was still a cultural
superiority influencing the teacher's treatment of students.
So Indian students who might be struggling with difference in language or exposure to
English materials would be characterized as having like learning deficiencies or
would be labeled as needing you know, special ed and so forth, but labeled in
such a way that their marginalization was assumed to be because of their culture,
right? And that, that was, so it kind of created
a whole new. Way of assimilation and marginalization
and devaluation of indigineus people of knowledge and thought but now done under
the term integration. So integration became like the buzzword.
We could integrate them into provincial schools and that'll lift them from, from
the older cultural trappings. So it was, it was still kind of talked
about, like that's what was holding them back.
And that's a discourse we still today, right?
I mean, unfortunately although it's bad for my health, I do read the comments on,
news media [laugh]. And it's, these notions are still out
there. If they would just move, or if they just
give up. They're clinging to something that's old
and past, you know, that kind of thing. So that, that colonialism by saying that
we can talk about a contemporary moment is not to say it's over.
These kinds of trends continue. The, the attitudes that pervaded the
residential school era kind of continue in a lot of discourse about education now.
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