Residential Schools Changed Shape of Country
By Caroline Zentner
As a school student Shelagh Rogers learned the English and the French were the founders of Canada. Not until she was an adult did she learn the truth about the residential school system. And she’s learned more since she became an honorary witness for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. “Reconciliation is an abstract concept but I think what we’re really talking about is partnership and relationship. We actually had that when Europeans first came to North America,” said Rogers, host of CBC Radio One’s “The Next Chapter” during her keynote speech at the South Western Alberta Teachers’ Convention Thursday morning at the University of Lethbridge. That initial relationship fell apart and the residential school system affected thousands of aboriginal people directly and indirectly. “The residential school era changed the shape of this country and not in a good way. I was 46 years old when I first heard the term ‘residential school.’ In my history books it never came up. I knew that there were schools on reserves and sometimes kids had to be moved away because the schools didn’t go all the way to Grade 12. But it was so much more than that,” she said. Rogers said it was a before-and-after moment when Prime Minister Stephen Harper, on behalf of Canadians, apologized to former students of residential schools. “When you do something wrong you apologize, you make amends, you seek change, you start again and you reconcile,” Rogers said. As an honorary witness to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Rogers said she’s learned a lot about Canada and not all of it good. “I’ve learned the real history of Canada and I really feel that this is something that we have got to be teaching in our schools,” she said. “I’m hoping that with education, with the generation that you’re working with day in, day out, that they’ll know the story and they won’t allow this to ever happen again, but more than that, they’ll seek to build a better relationship.” Rogers said she’s met many amazing people as an honorary witness. As people tell their stories, she has laughed and cried. While it’s not always easy to get a conversation going, the times when people can talk to each other as human beings first are usually the best. Rogers said she senses progress is being made toward reconciliation. “I don’t see it in great big waves. I see it more at the sense of the grass roots,” Rogers said. Many partnerships have been formed and more aboriginals are involved in successful business ventures. More aboriginal students are completing their education and becoming professionals. “I really think it will be from the bottom up,” she said. “This isn’t stuff that can be legislated like the First Nations Education Act. There’s finally some attention being paid but is it actually the right thing? I don’t actually know the answer to that. I need to investigate it more myself but I really do think what will stick is whatever goes sort of low along the ground, the grass roots . . . I don’t think it’s going to be fast and I don’t think it’s going to be easy but I am hopeful that it’s going to happen. I see it happening in small waves already.” Rod Lowry, president of the South Western Alberta Teachers’ Convention Association, said the 115th convention provides around 200 workshops and sessions for more than 1,500 teachers. Experts in their fields, many of them from Alberta, are invited to present on topics ranging from teaching dance and math to robotics. “This convention is actually paid for by teachers,” Lowry said. “The teachers do this and pay for it themselves. We plan it and we work hard to try and get something that’s good for all of our delegates that come.”
|
.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.