Reflection paper about residential school Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Reflection paper about residential school - Essay Example It seems the schools also had a larger purpose of eliminating the cultures of indigenous people in Canada. The problems started by sending the children to schools far away from home. Putting the native children far away from home and not allowing their parents to visit was psychologically devastating to the children. To worsen the situation, the government developed laws to force every child to attend school and forcefully remove children from school for the retraining. If the residential school system had good motives, then why force children to such schools. I think this was just a plot to remove the Indian culture by breaking the transmission chain through excluding children from their culture and putting them in complete isolation. The government’s slow response to the report issued by the Royal Commission on Aboriginal People further highlights the ill motive of the residential school system. The report extensively elaborated the abuse and neglect facing the natives in these schools. The food was inadequate; there is poor sanitation; they were overcrowded; students were malnourished and often abused by the teachers. The children were also exposed to diseases both deliberately and from the poor conditions in the schools. Rape, murder, sterilization and forced electrocution were among the problems reported by the Commission (Cherrington 1). Therefore, one is left to wonder if these are schools or some form of government torturing facilities for suspected terrorists. The residential school was fair to the natives. Despite coming from different cultures, these children are not in any way entitled to be treated as animals. It is important for government and people to respect the ethnic backgrounds and cultures of different individuals. I do not see any reason for developing initiatives to eliminate the customs of the natives. Why even create the residential schools in the