Canadian Indian residential school system

High school (ages 12+)
History & Culture

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/canadian-indian-residential-school-system

1. What is the geographic scope?
2. What is the operational duration?
3. What were Canada's residential schools and why were they far from home?
4. Why did the government make it compulsory for children to attend these schools?

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. What is the geographic scope?Network of schools operated across all Canadian provinces and territories
2. What is the operational duration?System active for over 160 years, from the mid-19th century to 1997
3. What were Canada's residential schools and why were they far from home?They were schools set up across Canada, far from Indigenous communities, to keep children away from families and cultures.
4. Why did the government make it compulsory for children to attend these schools?In 1894 attendance became compulsory to force children into the schools and stop them from keeping their language and traditions.

Indigenous Peoples: The original inhabitants of Canada, encompassing First Nations, Inuit, and Métis communities, with distinct cultures and histories.
Assimilation Policy: Government strategy aimed at absorbing minority cultural groups into the dominant culture, often through coercive means.
Cultural Genocide: The deliberate destruction of the cultural heritage, identity, and practices of a specific group of people.
Intergenerational Trauma: The transmission of historical trauma and its psychological effects from one generation to the next within affected communities.