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	The Good Side of the Residential School Story Is Valid, Too By Richard Wagamese Calgary Herald May 4, 2008 http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/story.html?id=f7366d51-dd13-42bb-9929-6f0dd3c5be83 Residential schools are Canada's shame. For roughly 100 years, their aim was to break the back of family, community, history and spirituality. Their aim was to end Canada's "Indian problem," to invoke the might of the right of the white to eradicate a people's sense of themselves and their rightful place in the history of the country. Some call it genocide. Others call it a holocaust. More refined thinkers label it mere assimilation. Whatever the label, the grievous hurt that was inflicted on Canadian consciousness festers even now, long after the last of the schools was closed. Now a touring commission will allow the survivors of that system to tell their stories. When the federal government's Truth and Reconciliation Commission begins its nationwide trek, Canadians will brace themselves for an onslaught of woe and terror, neglect and secret invasions of mind, body and spirit unparalleled in this country. They are prepared for bleak disclosure. But there are other stories that need to be told, as well. Stories like my mother's. My mother is 75 and attended the Cecilia Jeffery School outside Kenora, Ont. In the 60-some years that have passed since her experience, she has become a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. She lives in a small house on a reserve outside Kenora. When you enter my mother's house, there's one thing more than anything that strikes you. It's incredibly neat. She cleans fastidiously. Every surface in her home gleams and everything is organized and arranged to make the most out of the living area. There is a cross on the wall, a Bible by her bed and a picture of Jesus in the living room. It's a home not unlike the home of any grandmother anywhere in Canada. She credits the residential school experience with teaching her domestic skills. While she was at the school, she learned how to cook, sew, clean, launder and take care of a home. Her house on the reserve is known as the neatest and cleanest and even though she's an elder, she takes care to maintain it. Her lawn is the only cultured lawn on the whole reserve, shorn, immaculate, stunning. My mother has never spoken to me of abuse or any catastrophic experience at the school. She only speaks of learning valuable things that she went on to use in her everyday life, things that made her life more efficient, effective and empowered. Why is this important? Well, because the Truth and Reconciliation Commission needs to hear those kinds of stories, too. As a journalist since 1979, I've heard people credit residential schools with the foundation for learning that allowed them to pursue successful academic careers. Others tell of being introduced to skills that became lifelong careers, and still others, like my mother, talk of being introduced to a faith that guided the rest of their lives. Certainly, there are horrendous experiences. Certainly, the truth of those soul-killing incursions needs to see the light of day. Certainly, too, it is a necessary step in a nationwide healing. But if the focus of the commission is truth and the goal is reconciliation, then someone needs to begin by being conciliatory. The opportunity for native people to lead and to show Canada their heart is now. Because if, say, 150,000 people attended a residential school, not every single one of them was sexually or physically abused. To try to claim that would be outlandish and no one would buy it. Instead, let the commission hear from those for whom the residential school experience might have been a godsend, or at the least, a steppingstone to a more empowered future. Because those kinds of stories happened, too. They happened to my mother and others like her. To be brave and go against the flow and tell Canada that for some native people, the residential school experience was not exclusively a horror show is to tell Canada that we have grown as nations of people, that we recognize that truth means a whole vision and not just a selective memory. If native people use this opportunity to show that they are capable of seeing beyond hurts and invasions and rampant disregard for our lives and future, we show our neighbours that the heart of us was never broken, that we were never conquered, that we have not and will never be assimilated, and that we have retained our dignity despite everything that might have happened to us. Tell all of the stories. The good along with the bad. Lead by example and use this opportunity to create harmony, to create a more balanced future for all of us. Such is honesty. Such is truth. Such is the foundation of forgiveness and such are the bones of reconciliation. Richard Wagamese, a former Calgary Herald columnist, is the 2007 recipient of the Canadian Authors Association Award for fiction and a former National Newspaper Award-winning columnist.
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