Essay about Residential Schools

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Residential Schools
Canada is now seen to many multicultural people as the best place to move because there are many individuals from every culture. Canada is known for its multiculturalism around the world. Many do not know of the blemishes Canada has as does any country. One of the greatest blemishes Canada has to do with ethnocentric behaviours is the use of residential schools to demolish the aboriginal culture. Canadian schools are now seen to provide learning activities and credentials (McClinchey, 2011). In the film education was viewed as a painful event that attempted to destroy a culture and was remembered for years. The aboriginal children were forced by law to go to these schools and had no contact with their family in order to conform them. These institutions caused the ideas of the conflict theory to become true and caused an increase in cultural differences, gendered assumptions and social inequality As stated by Witherspoon “conflict theorists understand schooling as serving the capitalist aims of profit and compliant workers (Ravelli, 2010). It can be seen in residential schools that this theory is true in the idea of profit and compliant workers, the children were forced to do labour and were mainly used for that labour. They spent the least hours being educated and the most being used for their labour. The school was run through Government funds and by churches whose priests were the principals and the nuns were the teachers (Geraldine et al, 1993). Schools were seen as instruments to prepare conformers for the future and removing their possibilities for human development and progress (Ravelli, 2010). There was also a hidden curriculum in this society. It was used to show that the minority group the aboriginals were lower class, powerless and unprivileged. They were seen as a lower class due to being powerless and unprivileged. They were powerless because the Canadian government and society were able to force them to conform to their ways and they had no say about it. Even if they tried their hardest they could not get out of their struggle and were over powered. They were seen as underprivileged because they did not have all of the things that regular Canadian families had which showed that their status was lower than that of the typical Canadian. The curriculum also caused students to be alienated as they were not allowed to speak to others in their language and many of them had not learnt the English language yet.
Cultures can differ from other cultures in large or small aspects, in the case between the Canadian and the aboriginal culture it was large enough to cause the Canadian government to take the decision to dispose of the Aboriginal culture. As seen in the film residential schools there were many cultural differences between the Aboriginal culture and the Canadian culture. Culture can be defined as “a complex collection of values, beliefs, and material objects shared by a group and passed on from one generation to the next” (Ravelli, 2010). Many individuals already know that there is a difference of dressing style between the Aboriginal and Canadian society. Aboriginals tend to wear distinct clothing that has vibrant colours. They also paint their faces and bodies for rituals. Another distinct part of their clothing is that they wear head dresses made of feathers. These distinct types of clothing differ from the clothing that Canadian’s wear. They tend to wear suits and dresses that are coloured on the duller side. Another difference between the two cultures is that they speak different languages as seen in the film the Aboriginals spoke Cree and they were forced by the Canadians to speak in English and lose their language. During that time there was also a difference in people gathered their food, it was normal for Aboriginal peoples to be hunters and gatherers whereas the Canadian culture was technologically advanced and therefore did not have to do the hunting and gathering as society.
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