“You can’t know who you are until you know the past. You can’t know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been” (Corey Harris, as cited in Seale & Slapin, p.4).
When First Nations children were taken away from their parents and their home by the government, they were placed in residential schools. At the residential schools, children did not have any opportunities to practice their culture, language and the literacy practices of their families and communities. Moreover, children were “faced with physical, emotional, and sexual abuse” (Moayeri & Smith, 2010, p. 409). These First Nations children never felt that they were at “home” when they were at residential schools. As they were separated from their families they also did not experience their own culture or language; therefore, they did not know where they belonged to. These children did not know who they were and where they were at until they might one day finally pick up what they have lost. The question is who is providing them those opportunities to practice their family cultures? How many of those children are willing to come back to their original cultures when they can no longer speak their mother tongue?
Unfortunately, First Nations children who have been put in the residential schools did not just lose the opportunity to practice their culture, but were "fixed" by the Canadian government to fit into Western culture. According to Smith (2004),
“While First Nations children are small, their family members talk to them. Grandfathers advise the children on how to live so that their life will be long. However, upon colonization of Canada and the writing of the Native Act, the federal government took over the responsibility of education Aboriginal children. The voices of the grandfathers were silenced. The agenda of the colonizers was to assimilate these children into Western culture by separating them from their families and communities and stripping them of their languages, values, and beliefs” (as cited in Moayeri & Smith, 2010, p.412).
Experiences from childhood significantly influence people’s future learning and lives. I felt the same way when I was at high school. Being an immigrant without the official language, I did not feel like I belonged to the school environment. When I was in the ESL classes, students were only allowed to speak English with each other. Students were learning Canada's history, reading English literature, writing in English because by only using English, students were able to adapt to the Canadian culture quicker and easier. I am here to experience learning a new language, a new culture and a different life style but not to lose my own language, my own culture and my own way of living.
I wonder, is learning a new language actually means to lose the one I already have? When learning a new culture, do we need to give up practicing our original culture? Is that the choice that we must make?
Your statement, "Experiences from childhood significantly influence people's future learning and lives" provoked me to think about how First Nations individuals, who were subjected to the residential schools, never fully recover from their experiences there and thus affected and continues to affect how they live (learn, experience, etc) their lives. I also relate this statement to Moayeri and Smith's (2010) statement that residential schools "failed to totally destroy [the First Nations'] culture and language, but they often succeeded in destroying the self-esteem and self-confidence of the students who attended the schools" (p. 415). I understood it as children who went to such schools had great potential but with all the mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual abuse, these children grew up to become adults that questioned their capabilities and struggled with finding and maintaining the confidence they have of themselves.
回复删除When I was in high school, I was told that I wasn't good enough in my creative writing skills. To this day, every time I have to write a paper or a mere reflection, I become really particular - in the spelling of the words, choice of words, content of my writing, and the style I'm using - because I'm always reminded of my teacher who told me I was (somehow) not good enough. I share this not to put it in the same token as the experiences of the individuals in our readings but to try to understand this on a personal level and how it has affected and continues to affect me. As an educator, we need to remember that we affect children now and in their future. We need to think about how our actions can potentially limit or completely destroy children's strengths - cognitively, emotionally, physically, and spiritually.
In your experience, how often do you go back to that moment of not feeling you belonged especially when you are in a new setting with new people, experiencing new things? How does that influence how you act or don't act?