The primary resource selected for this assignment was found through a Google search using the phrase, ‘history of education in Canada.’ The first result in the list was a page on The Canadian Encyclopedia’s website titled History of Education in Canada (Gaffield, 2013).
Using the find functionality (ctrl+F), the term ‘residential’ was found twice on the webpage, identifying two short paragraphs that referred to residential schools and the assimilation of Aboriginal peoples. However, one paragraph did contain a link to another webpage titled Residential Schools in Canada (Miller, 2012)
These resources were found after many attempts to locate and determine appropriate resources for this assignment. Being unfamiliar with educational history or teacher professional development, my aim became to find a resource that summarized the history of education in Canada to see how Indigeneity, Indigenous people, and residential schools were represented in a resource that would be available to the public. The Canadian Encyclopedia was selected on the assumption that encyclopedias are seen as a credible source for information on various subjects and are designed to expand one’s knowledge on topics.
As mentioned above, the find functionality was used to find specific terms within the online text. The results for History of Education in Canada (Gaffield, 2013) are as follows:
- Residential = 2 (in reference to ‘residential schools,’ a search term recommended by the instructor)
- Indian = 0
- Indigenous = 0
- Aboriginal = 9
- First Nations = 0
- Native = 0
The term ‘Aboriginal’ was only presented in the context of education as a mission for colonial assimilation. Also, only one of the nine instances of Aboriginal was capitalized. Based on the information available on the First Nations Studies Program’s (2009) Terminology page, it would have been more respectful to capitalize every instance of the term.
The topic of residential schools’ assimilation of Indigenous people was only referred to in four (of 56) paragraphs. Although there was a link to a separate webpage dedicated to residential schools in Canada if one does not choose to seek this additional information it would be easy to assume that the formal attempts to “undermine the traditional culture” (Gaffield, 2013, para.7) of Indigenous people was extremely minor in the overall context of Canadian education history.
Using the find functionality again, the same list of terms (minus ‘residential)’ was searched within this webpage. The results for Residential Schools in Canada (Miller, 2012) are as follows:
- Indian = 19
- Indigenous = 29
- Aboriginal = 1
- First Nation = 9 (to capture both singular and plural versions)
- Native = 0
While reviewing the above two resources, some of the content prompted me to consider the intergenerational effects of residential schools. This also connected to a third resource that I had found during my initial searches for resources, produced by Stout and Peters (2011) and titled kiskinohamâtôtâpânâsk: Inter-generational Effects on Professional First Nations Women Whose Mothers are Residential. This study examined the ongoing impact of residential school experiences, affecting generations of individuals who did not attend residential schools themselves.
My professional background – both education and experience – includes human resources and workplace learning, so the new questions that came to mind when reading these resources were:
- For those who do not take the time to educate themselves further (i.e., beyond the curriculum taught in Canadian schools), how does this shape their assumptions, either known or unknown as adults? How does that translate into the workplace, hiring practices, management strategies, and tolerance for diversity?
- What other ‘ripple effects’ continue to impact workplaces today as a result of these residential school experiences and how Indigeneity has been – and continues to be – represented in formal educational contexts?
These individuals’ personal circumstances would undoubtedly extend into their professional roles, which lead to questions about how current hiring, training, and other retention strategies systemically discriminate against Indigenous people. While the topic of systemic discrimination is being discussed and examined in many workplaces today in the context of how best to avoid unconscious bias, there is immense value in understanding that some attitudes, habits and contexts of work are connected to influences that run much deeper than the worker’s own personal experiences.
One of the biggest limitations of these results is my own unconscious bias and perspective, as a white-European treaty land inhabitant (Cuthand, 2021) currently living and learning on the Haldimand Tract within the territory of the Neutral, Anishinaabe, and Haudenosaunee peoples.
Another limitation is the digitization of information and assuming that encyclopedias are trusted resources. I grew up going to school in the 1980s and 1990s and was often directed to encyclopedias to further my knowledge on various topics. However, if these resources were produced by other white treaty land inhabitants they may not have had access to the full story of Canada’s educational history.
References
Cuthand, S. (2021, August 30). Introducing yourself as a ‘settler’ creates division. CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/calling-yourself-a-settler-pov-1.6151582
First Nations Studies Program (2009). Terminology. https://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/terminology/
Gaffield, C. (2013, July 15; last edited June 18, 2020). History of Education in Canada. The Canadian Encyclopedia. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/history-of-education
Miller, J. R. (2012, October 10; last edited May 20, 2022). Residential Schools in Canada. The Canadian Encyclopedia. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/residential-schools
Stout, R. & Peters, S. (2011). kiskinohamâtôtâpânâsk: Inter-generational Effects on Professional First Nations Women Whose Mothers are Residential. Canada Commons. https://canadacommons.ca/artifacts/2039292/kiskinohamatotapanask/2791735/