It seems that education is the key to reconciliation, as outlined in the 388-page Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) report that came out this week. Well, that and loads of money and commitment by the federal government for many years to come. But as far as the average citizen is concerned, it’s all about education.
Education leads to understanding, and until non-Aboriginals truly understand the harm done to Aboriginals in Canada, we can’t begin to move past it.
I think TRC commissioner Justice Murray Sinclair laid out the issue well when he explained how for seven generations Aboriginal children were forced into residential schools and taught that they weren’t as good as non-Aboriginals, that their language and culture were irrelevant and that their people and ancestors were uncivilized heathens who needed to learn a different way of life.
Non-Aboriginal children were taught the same message through their school system during that dark period.
“As a result, many generations of children, including you and your parents, have been raised to think about things in a different way, a wrong way, a way that is negative when it comes to Aboriginal people – and we need to change that,” Sinclair said on a webcast posted to the TRC website.
“It was the educational system that contributed to this problem in this country, and it’s the education system, we believe, that’s going to help us to get away from this.”
To that end, the TRC made recommendations about including the true history of Canada’s First Nations people in all of the country’s curriculum, and I think it’s a great idea.
On the Coast we’re fortunate to have Aboriginal educators come into our schools to teach our children about the history, culture and protocols of the shíshálh Nation. My children love learning about it, but so many children in other areas have no clue.
And many of us adults are also clueless when it comes to First Nations history, specifically about the atrocities that went on in residential schools.
I myself was unaware of the gravity of what happened until I went to a screening of We Were Children in Sechelt that the shíshálh Nation put on a couple of years ago.
The film follows children through their experiences at residential school as told by the survivors brave enough to share their painful memories of rape, sodomy, starvation, abuse and unimaginable cruelty.
There were times during that film that I wept, times I wanted to throw up and times I felt the urge to run out of the theatre because it was too much to take. That’s the truth of the residential school experience. There’s no apology in the world that will fix the damage done not only to the children who went through residential school but also to the generations that came after.
I’m thankful the TRC has come up with a set of 94 recommendations that are meant to help move Canada on the path towards reconciliation, and I believe if we all do our part to educate ourselves, we can get a head start down that road.
