By Bryan Eneas

The history behind day school to residential school

Sep 14, 2016 | 5:00 PM

paNow.com is taking a look into the Indian day school program in a three part series. Kirkby Fourier Law office in Prince Albert is gathering names of day school attendees in hopes of seeking legal action for survivors. To read part one, click here.

The history of First Nations education in Canada is complex and stretches far beyond the reach of what the Truth and Reconciliation Commission covered.

For those who attended residential schools, survivors could be taken away from their families from a young age for up to 10 months at a time until the age of 16. At that age, they could either continue on to complete Grade 12 or end their studies. These children’s parents typically relied on their traditional trapping lines to support their families, or they were located in a more remote area of the province.

For families who didn’t rely on the traditional trapping lines, they would find themselves in a slightly different system according to Richie Bird, a former residential school support worker and a day school attendee.

“You went from a day school here, right to residential school,” Bird said. “Indian day school went up to Grade 8. For Grade 9 and 10 we were in the residential school until Grade 11 and 12 when we were in a boarding home program in Prince Albert.”

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When residential school students returned to their communities they would share stories of what they witnessed.

“Maybe 30 per cent of our kids went to residential school. The kids that did come back (from residential school) would tell us stories. It was very fearful for us to go to residential school because of what they were saying was going on and what was happening to them.”

Bird attended the Montreal Lake Indian Day School in the 1970s before going on to attend the Prince Albert Indian Residential School. He since went on to work as a residential school support worker, listening to the stories of survivors. He said the titles of day scholar and day school attendee can cause some confusion.

“The ones that people get confused about (are) Muscowequan, you stayed home but you went to residential school in the day time. Duck Lake, their residential school was right there, so it was the only school that was there,” Bird said. “The day scholars, those are the ones who should be compensated if there was any abuse. As far as Indian day school, it was basically part of our education.”

Bird said most of the abuse that occurred can be attributed to methods of discipline used in the era. The biggest difference between the abuse residential school survivors witnessed and what was dealt out in the Indian day school program was the abuser according to Bird.

In day schools “it was done by the teachers to the kids. In the residential schools it was mostly the caregivers, the staff right in the dorms,” Bird said. “The teachers were just as bad as the caregivers in the residential school as far as the way they treated the kids… We went to school not knowing one word of English, so it was hard on the teachers trying to teach kids that didn’t speak the language. A lot of the kids suffered quite a bit because of that.”

Bird attributes much of this suffering to frustration on the teacher’s part.

“If you went to Indian day school fine, there was abuse. The teachers were probably frustrated because of the language,” Bird said. “Some of the things that happened with Indian day schools were (from) the problem with language, the problem that they weren’t run by local communities, no local staff, and no school boards. Whoever came as principal looked after the whole school.”

Bird said the story of the Indian day schools should be used to educate future generations, just like the stories of the residential school survivors.

“It shouldn’t be ‘okay we’ve told our story now it’s time to move on,’ there’s history behind it that needs to be told to kids,” he said.

Bryan.Eneas@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @BryanEneas