Prairie Residential School Case Study

To deculturize aboriginal children they needed to be separated from their families. To do this, residential schools were created off reserve land and parental access was restricted causing parents and their children to lose contact with one another . This allowed church employees, who ran the schools, the chance to take over and become the new parental figure for the impressionable minds of the young, terrified, and confused Indigenous children. Furthermore, as Carpenter states, the children were isolated from not only their family and homelands, but also from their friends and siblings, which made them more vulnerable to the massive brainwashing inflicted in order to replace their “pagan superstitions” with Christianity . Recalls Joseph Martin Larocque who attended the Qu’Appelle school, “They scared us. From the time I was small ’til the time the, the priest, the nuns, the whole thing, they scared everybody with dead people, and, you know, talking about the devil.” Other techniques used in residential schools to strip children from their cultures were the shaving of the traditional long hair; cutting off braids; replacing homemade traditional clothing for a school uniform; punishment for practicing …show more content…
As early as 1907, Dr. Peter H. Bryce raised concerns over health conditions following investigations at a number of Prairie residential schools. By this time, according to Miller, the high death rates were resulting in public attention. Yet, no MP drafted a motion to close the schools. And in 1951, when the deplorable conditions of the school once more came the forefront, “the discourse of the “Indian Problem” was so strong that despite the government reports, media stories, and survivor accounts of the many kinds of abuse that were occurring, the Canadian government actively chose to keep the residential school system