Category: History 3510- Learning reflections

From this class there was one thing that really stood out for me the most. This was residential schools it was such a horrible time and it really hit close to home with having many of my family members attend residential schools. But I notice not everyone who attended wants to tell their story, this could have many reasons behind it, but I think all stories should be heard as people need to really know what happened. People don’t tell  them or people just aren’t around to tell them and its one of those things that really needs to be looked at in more depth to be really understood.

I found that the pictures from residential schools can show so much. As I was doing my research I came across many pictures that make me feel like I was at these schools and could better understand what was happening. I save some that I thought stood out. There are also many memoirs out there that I think more people should read as this is how history should be told, from the people that experienced it themselves.

http://www.historyandinnovation.ca/sites/historyandinnovation.ca/files/img/story/node154.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/22/Stpauls-middlechurch-man.jpg/275px-Stpauls-middlechurch-man.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/Carlisle_pupils.jpg

http://nebula.wsimg.com/57e6470635e9c2ff2247433da3438f04?AccessKeyId=2DFC29495CF915879C96&disposition=0&alloworigin=1

http://wherearethechildren.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/rd_42-1024×815.jpg

 

It seems as in this class we learned a lot about the bad things that happened.  The history on education seems to focus on the negative but maybe that is because there was a lot of negative things that happened and not as many positive things that happened. How I see it is that when public school became available for everyone that was good but not everyone agreed with it. Children didn’t want to attend because they felt it was not necessary and felt that going to work would be more beneficial for their family. But eventually school became mandatory, and not everyone liked this idea. It created racism and europeans did everything they could to make it so their school was all of the same race, no one could be of colour. If there was colour in the school they got bullied and heckled until they stopped showing up to school. So eventually segregated schools were made and this was all wrong as white schools were first priority so the other schools were underfunded and poorly managed there fore made the schools not always a great place to be. There were schools for whites who were the rich schools and got what they need and then there were the schools for blacks, first nations, Chinese and anyone else that wasn’t white, and there were the other schools that the government didn’t really care about. As there were many problems with the schools for the minority races  there were also the problems from the white schools like what they were teaching and how they were teaching it. As well as just they way they were living and the staff hiring process influenced the way those children though allowing them to think racism is ok and gender discrimination is ok too.  All were very wrong things.

Many of these problems continue on into todays times. And it is my understanding that if we do not teach history it will repeat its self as we learn from the bad things that we do. Unfortunately these things happened but hopefully we grow from them and stop all the problems. As talking about these issues and making more people aware of them will hopefully make it so our country never does this again. As many teacher and schools need to change their way of thinking to be open to what new things are about to come. There has been positive things like the free education we have today for our children and those should be celebrated as that is a big step that was taken. But the negatives also need to be taught as this will hopefully make further generations learn from the past mistakes.