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Education

New Report Offers a Nuanced Perspective on Canada’s Indian Residential Schools

Published

2 months ago

5 minute read

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

Positive stories about Indian Residential Schools must also be heard

The Frontier Centre for Public Policy is pleased to announce the release of a thought-provoking new report titled Positive Stories of Indian Residential Schools Must Also be Heard by Hymie Rubenstein and James C. McCrae. This report challenges the dominant narrative surrounding Canada’s Indian Residential Schools, advocating for a more balanced and comprehensive understanding of their historical legacy.

In Positive Stories of Indian Residential Schools Must Also be Heard, Rubenstein and McCrae critically examine the current portrayal of the residential school system, which is often overwhelmingly negative. The authors argue that this narrative fails to acknowledge the positive experiences of many former students and the genuine intentions of those who worked within the system. While not dismissing the testimonies of abuse, the report emphasizes that these accounts do not represent the full spectrum of experiences at the schools.

The report highlights several stories of individuals who credit their time in residential schools with shaping their successful futures. For instance, Len Marchand, Canada’s first status Indian member of parliament and a federal cabinet minister, attended the Kamloops (BC) Indian Residential School and spoke highly of the education he received there. In his memoir, Breaking Trail, he noted that his time at the school inspired his desire to help his people through education.

Similarly, Tomson Highway, a celebrated Canadian playwright and composer, described his years at Guy Hill Indian Residential School in Manitoba as “nine of the best years of my life.” His parents chose to send him to the school, believing it would provide better opportunities for their children. The skills Highway acquired, including classical piano, were instrumental in his later achievements.

Reverend Canon Stan Cuthand, an Indigenous Anglican priest who served as a chaplain at several residential schools, also offers a positive perspective. He recalled that the schools were not “terrible places” and praised the efforts of staff who worked to protect and nurture the children, even integrating Indigenous culture into the curriculum.

As students return to classrooms this fall, the topic of residential schools has taken a central role in many curricula across the country. However, there is concern that some teachers focus solely on the “horrors” of these institutions or even frame Canada as a genocidal state, leaving little room for a balanced discussion. This report urges educators to offer a more nuanced view that includes both the positive and negative aspects of the residential school system. Stories like those of Tomson Highway and Len Marchand demonstrate that not every experience was one of trauma, and some students went on to achieve remarkable success as a result of their education.

The report also touches on the experiences of Lea Meadows, whose mother, Elsie McLaren Meadows, had a positive experience at the Brandon (Manitoba) Indian Residential School. Inspired by her time there, Elsie became a teacher and later worked in similar schools. Meadows argues that it is unjust to label all who worked at these schools as abusers, recognizing that many were dedicated to the well-being and education of the children.

Moreover, the report cites instances where Indigenous communities themselves supported the continuation of residential schools. For example, in 1970, Alberta’s Saddle Lake First Nation residents successfully protested the closure of Blue Quills School, taking control of the institution themselves. Similarly, in 1971, eight Saskatchewan bands advocated for the Marieval Indian Residential School to remain open, emphasizing its importance for children from challenging home environments.

Positive Stories of Indian Residential Schools Must Also be Heard is a timely and significant contribution to the ongoing debate about the legacy of the residential school system. It encourages Canadians to consider all perspectives in the pursuit of truth and reconciliation, acknowledging both the positive and negative aspects of this complex history.

Download the backgrounder here. (10 pages)

About the Authors:

  • Hymie Rubenstein is the editor of REAL Indigenous Report. A retired professor of anthropology, he served as a board member and taught for many years at St. Paul’s College, University of Manitoba, the only Roman Catholic higher education institution in Manitoba.
  • James C. McCrae is a former attorney general of Manitoba and Canadian citizenship judge.
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Red Deer

Judge upholds sanctions against Red Deer Catholic school trustee who opposed LGBT agenda

Published on November 18, 2024

By

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Monique LaGrange was ousted last December from the Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools’ board for comparing the LGBT agenda targeting children to brainwashing.

A Canadian judge ruled that a school board was justified to place harsh sanctions on a Catholic school trustee forced out of her position because she opposed extreme gender ideology and refused to undergo LGBT “sensitivity” training.

Justice Cheryl Arcand-Kootenay of the Court of King’s Bench of Alberta ruled Thursday that the Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools (RDCRS) Board’s sanctions placed against former trustee Monique LaGrange will stand.

LaGrange had vowed to fight the school board in court, and it remains to be seen if she can take any further actions after the decision by Judge Arcand-Kootenay.

The judge ruled that the RDCRS’s policies in place for all trustees, which the board contended were breached, were “logical, thorough, and grounded in the facts that were before the Board at the time of their deliberations.”

As reported by LifeSiteNews, the RDCRS board voted 3-1 last December to disqualify LaGrange after she compared the LGBT agenda targeting kids with that of “brainwashing” Nazi propaganda. As a result of being voted out, LaGrange later resigned from her position.

The former school board trustee initially came under fire in September 2023 when she posted an image showing kids in Nazi Germany waving swastika flags during a parade to social media, with the bottom of the post showing an image of kids waving LGBT “Pride” flags along with the text: “Brainwashing is brainwashing.”

After her post went viral, calls for her to step down grew from leftist Alberta politicians and others. This culminated in her removal as director of the Alberta Catholic School Trustees’ Association (ACSTA).

In September 2023, the RDCRS passed a motion to mandate that LaGrange undergo “LGBTQ+” and holocaust “sensitivity” training for her social media post.

LaGrange, however, refused to apologize for the meme or undergo “sensitivity” training.

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Education

‘Grade inflation’ gives students false sense of their academic abilities

Published on November 18, 2024

By

From the Fraser Institute

By Michael Zwaagstra

The average entrance grade at the University of British Columbia is now 87 per cent, up from 70 per cent only 20 years ago. While this is partly because the supply of available university spots has not kept pace with growing demand, it’s also likely that some B.C. high schools are inflating their students’ grades.

Suppose you’re scheduled for major heart surgery. Shortly before your surgery begins, you check into your surgeon’s background and are pleased to discover your surgeon had a 100 per cent average throughout medical school. But then you learn that every student at the same medical school received 100 per cent in their courses, too. Now you probably don’t feel quite as confident in your surgeon.

This is the ugly reality of “grade inflation” where the achievements of everyone, including the most outstanding students, are thrown into question. Fortunately, grade inflation is (currently) rare in medical schools. But in high schools, it’s a growing problem.

In fact, grade inflation is so prevalent in Ontario high schools that the University of Waterloo’s undergraduate engineering program uses an adjustment factor when evaluating student applications—for example, Waterloo might consider a 95 per cent average from one school the equivalent of an 85 per cent average from another school.

Grade inflation is a problem in other provinces as well. The average entrance grade at the University of British Columbia is now 87 per cent, up from 70 per cent only 20 years ago. While this is partly because the supply of available university spots has not kept pace with growing demand, it’s also likely that some B.C. high schools are inflating their students’ grades.

Sadly, grade inflation is so rampant these days that some school administrators don’t even try to hide it. For example, earlier this year all students at St. Maximilian Kolbe Catholic High School in Aurora, Ontario, received perfect marks on their midterm exams in two biology courses and one business course—not because these students had mastered these subjects but because the York Catholic District School Board had been unable to find a permanent teacher at this school.

The fact that a school board would use grade inflation to compensate for inadequate instruction in high school tells us everything we need to know about the abysmal academic standards in many schools across Canada.

And make no mistake, student academic performance is declining. According to results from the Programme for International Assessment (PISA), math scores across Canada declined from 532 points in 2003 to 497 points in 2022 (PISA equates 20 points to one grade level). In other words, Canadian students are nearly two years behind on their math skills then they were 20 years ago. While their high school marks are going up, their actual performance is going down.

And that’s the rub—far from correcting a problem, grade inflation makes the problem much worse. Students with inflated grades get a false sense of their academic abilities—then experience a rude shock when they discover they aren’t prepared for post-secondary education. (According to research by economists Ross Finnie and Felice Martinello, students with the highest high school averages usually experience the largest drop in grades in university). Consequently, many end up dropping out.

Grade inflation even hurts students who go on to be academically successful because they suffer the indignity of having their legitimate achievements thrown into doubt by the inflated grades of other students. If we want marks to have meaning, we must end the practise of grade inflation. We do our students no favours when we give them marks they don’t really deserve.

Just as our confidence in a surgeon would go down if we found out that every student from the same medical school had a 100 per cent average, so we should also question the value of diplomas from high schools where grade inflation is rampant.

Author:

Michael Zwaagstra
Senior Fellow, Fraser Institute
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