Nirmal Patel
Student id: 3115299
THE EFFECTS OF RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS ON THE INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES
Group 4, Team India. Adil Khan, Harjas Kaur, Manvi Kapoor, Nirmal Patel
Canada welcomes many religions. All kinds of religious people live together, and they help each other. However, learning about Indigenous people is more important as it shows us the old religions of Canada, it shows us how the colonization of these communities demolish the religious and their traditional teachings. Especially, Residential schools have a major negative impact on Indigenous people. The first time when Residential schools were built, Indigenous people have convinced that they are going to educate their kids. But the real motive was to change the traditions and culture of these communities negatively and generationally.
The tradition of Indigenous people is so rich with various practices and teachings. The one example of traditional teachings is “Seven Sacred Teachings of the
Anishinaabe – Respect, Courage, Love, Truth, Humility, Honesty, and Wisdom”( Carlos Colorado 2020). Christian missionaries have established this Schooling System to weaken the family bond. According to Article, “The Indian Residential Schools (IRS) ‘were created to separate Aboriginal children from their families, to minimize and weaken family ties and cultural linkages, and to indoctrinate children into . . . Euro-Christian Canadian society’ (TRC, 2015: v)” ( Carlos Colorado 2020).
Indigenous spiritualities have proved resilient in the face of the tremendous devastation caused by residential schools. Traditional knowledge has been preserved; however, many Indigenous people have lost touch with it because of the residential schools – a terrible legacy of the residential schools. One of the TRC’s main goals is to save and nurture traditional teachings and ways of life. (Carlos Colorado 2020)
The culture and tradition of any community are very important for development and spiritual practice is the heart of and religion in the world. This is the reason that missionaries build schools to take away kids from their parents and grandparents. Children have been taught different things than their traditions and it affects their religious beliefs. However, the Indigenous religion is resilient and fight against these people. The work of TRC is notable to bring back the identity of these communities.
References
The website of the United Nation Department of Economic and Social Affairs – Indigenous Peoples(United Nations For Indigenous Peoples | Indigenous Peoples):
This website provides all the information about Indigenous communities. We can find data of history, culture, development, etc. from this single source and it is the best resource to get the idea of indigenous people. The best thing about this site is it has a section called “Mandated Areas” which shows all the topics and issues faced by indigenous communities like Education, Economics, health, culture, children, and women. In addition, it has a page that contains books, videos, articles, surveys about Indigenous people, which is better to find further information.
The Canadian Encyclopedia (Home | The Canadian Encyclopedia) site is another best resource to get data about indigenous people. This site has all the information about Canadian Indigenous communities like Health, Environment, Education, Women, Art, and Culture. The best part of this website is it contains information specially used for education purposes. That’s why the wording of this site is easy to understand. Moreover, we have used this site to understand the culture and arts of indigenous people. So, we can learn more about them and use that data in our project and presentation. We love this site because of its structure and language.
The research article “Reconciliation and the secular” (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0037768619894510) was published on Sage Journals by Professor Carlos Colorado( University of Winnipeg). This is a good reference to learn about Indigenous spirituality and understand political views on secularism. I have chosen this article because I have watched the movie “The Good Life” by Professor Colorado, and I have learned many things about Spirituality and TRC from that movie. And this article also contains the same kind of information. Moreover, this article describes the Truth and Reconciliation Committee and its work in Canada with giving references to many great leaders, Politicians, and Advocates.
The Book “Traditional Knowledge & Indigenous Peoples” Edited and translated by Ulia Popova-Gosart (Microsoft Word – $ASQWIPO-LIENIP Publication May 11.edited.doc) is based on a series of educational events organized and conducted by LIENIP. It comprises several articles written for, and speeches made at these events, and it also includes a glossary of related concepts. In this book we can learn more about traditional teaching of Indigenous people, development, and education to preserve these cultures and teachings and how can we prevent these teaching in an era of Information systems. This book is published in English and Russian language.
The Canadian Government website (Indigenous peoples and cultures – Canada.ca) also contains the detail about Indigenous people their culture, art, languages. We have used this site to get some factual data. This website contains all legal and accurate information. This site also provides data on funding and development of Indigenous communities by the government of Canada. Moreover, this is the best source to learn about some legislative terms and concepts like Indian status, First nation, Metis.
The Ontario Human Rights Commission (11. Indigenous spiritual practices | Ontario Human Rights Commission (ohrc.on.ca)) website contains great information about the Spirituality of Indigenous people. The best thing about this site and these articles are they have definitions, examples, Reference from Scared Text, which is easy to understand. I have used this site in my project because it gives me great knowledge about Indigenous spirituality practices and this information help to understand overall scenarios of their spiritual life as an individual and as a community. The only problem I found is this site is not safe, so it was hard for me to validate all information it contains from its references.
Indigenous Peoples Atlas of Canada (Truth and Reconciliation | Indigenous Peoples Atlas of Canada) website is the best to learn about these communities in terms of Geographics. The user interface of this site is modern and fabulous, it is easy to navigate, we can find all information easily, reduce our eye stress when we read through this site. I have chosen this site to get information about Truth and Reconciliation and Residential schooling systems. This is a great site to learn about this school system and how it affects communities of Indigenous people.
We have decided to present our project by sending a presentation video to the professor. We will make slides on our project and at the zoom meeting, we will meet and present our respective topics and record video. Then we will send that video to the professor.
Work Cited:
Carlos Colorado, “Reconciliation and the secular” (2020) (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0037768619894510)
Derek Smith, “Religion and Spirituality of Indigenous Peoples in Canada” (https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/religion-of-aboriginal-people)
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