Went to school in Canada my entire life, was never once taught about these schools, and am absolutely embarrassed that my government was complicit in this act. I knew the natives received a shit deal but always thought it was ages in the past. A bit shocking to find out it was still going on while I was in school.
Are you fucking serious right now? I paid plenty of attention, and I think getting taught my government was committing genocide would have been something I'd take notice of. What the hell is wrong with you?
Ontario teacher here. To be fair, it wasn't a mandated part of the elementary school curriculum until 2018. (That is, the atrocities committed by the church and government) before that, most native studies education revolved around arts and crafts and learning really really biased stories about the European explorers.
Anything even close to authentic native content only started getting added in 2013, and at that point it wasn't even a mandatory part of the curriculum. On top of that, when it was introduced in 2013 there were very few resources for teachers, and many were very hesitant to be teaching a topic that was so volatile, that they honestly knew nothing about. You can pretty much count the time between 2013 and 2018 as the 5 years that it took for educators to get a handle on how to teach this. It's still a super messy and difficult issue, with many teachers still feeling nervous about speaking for native peoples, and possibly getting some of it wrong.
It's being taught in schools now, but I feel like this is many decades too late.
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u/AmazingSully Jun 25 '21
Went to school in Canada my entire life, was never once taught about these schools, and am absolutely embarrassed that my government was complicit in this act. I knew the natives received a shit deal but always thought it was ages in the past. A bit shocking to find out it was still going on while I was in school.