Section 4: Impacts of Residential School

For NAN students and all Aboriginal students across Canada who attended residential schools, abuse did flourish. Records show that everything from speaking an Aboriginal language, to bedwetting, running away, smiling at children of the opposite sex or at one's sibling, provoked whippings, strappings, beatings and other forms of abuse and humiliation. In some cases children were 'punished' for no apparent reason at all.

Residential schools had a major impact on the individuals that attended these schools at a more personal level, however, these impacts, like a pebble dropped into a pond, had a ripple effect outwards from the victims touch those who surround them.

To encourage students to reflect on how Aboriginal cultures have changed while analyzing the core elements that remain important.

Residential schools are the most obvious form of genocide to Indigenous Peoples of North America. The following lesson will deal with many different definitions of genocide and how genocide still effects us today and how it effects our Aboriginal youth who are trying to find and reclaim their identity.