Research Outline For my initial research, I chose Residential schools as my topic. Residential schools are government funded boarding schools which took place in the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s. This event was trying to make Aboriginal children talk, dress, think and act like Canadians. At the time, the government and churches believed that residential schooling was the right thing to do for the Aboriginal children to be better and wiser people. Residential school was not the right thing to do even though the government and churches believed in the movement, due to their intent of educating, assimilating and integrating the Aboriginal people into Canadian society. The system was designed to "kill the Indian in the child." Aboriginal families all across Canada were affected by the residential schools system, and still are affected. Children were forced to attend and live year round at these schools. Parents had to accept that their children would no longer be in their care and that they would be looked after by churches and funded by the Canadian government, or face imprisonment. The importance of this issue is that, residential schools had a high impact at the time to destroy the close ties in Aboriginal families and the strong sense of culture in communities. When thinking about, why would the Canadian government do that? I think they wanted to make Aboriginal children to be like Canadians at the time. The government wanted to blend the aboriginals in to the "norm" of Canadian society. If you are an "outsider" like a First Nations person, you are expected to follow to rules and social normalities of a Canadian. Life at residential schools was hard for the first nation’s children. Children were taught that their spiritual practices were evil, and were banned from their practices. They were forced to speak English, and were punished if they spoke their own native languages. Many suffered physical, sexual and emotional abuse while living in the residential schools. Some children died from how horrible treatments were at the Residential schools. They couldn’t take the abuse or the poor poverty anymore. Very few of the teachers were qualified to teach therefore the education was poor. It’s important to note that the residential school programs were disgraceful, not just from the perspective of our times, but from the perspective of their own. At the end, I want to learn what did the government
