Residential Schools: Canada's Hidden Tragedy

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Residential Schools
Residential schools were created to teach the First Nation’s Children about European and Christian beliefs so that they could find a useful place in Canadian society. In over 100 years that the schools ran, approximately 150,000 students were enrolled from the age of 5 till they were teenagers. Most of the children were taken away from their parents between the ages of 5-6. The main reason for these institutions was to put a huge amount of stress over the fact that the Indian children did not know anything according to the Europeans. So that they could live and lead good lives in the new country called Canada. These assumptions and mistreatments with the First Nation children caused them to lose their native tongue, develop disorders and then self-medicate themselves for those conditions.
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The residential schools banned all native dialects so that the only language and culture continued would be English and Christianity. This sudden change from one language to another was a difficult part of most kids first experiences at residential schools. Especially for the little ones as they were the most confused and lost. As a result of these harsh rules, the government and churches implied at these institutions, when the children finally went back to their homes after finishing at the schools they had a hard time communicating with their families and had to try to relearn their native language. Which was hard, because when people get older it becomes more difficult to learn new things like languages. This loss of language also led to the loss of culture because the first native culture was hugely linked to

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