Canada Day

Canada Day today and it is a bit of a sad one. It is hard to celebrate when one thinks of all those residential school children who lost their lives whilst attending school. Slowly the story comes out that such attendance was obligatory and that the children had to live in the school. 

It does bring my thoughts back to school in the early 50s. I loved to read and was definitely not very sociable and would always try to read my books when I completed my work. I remember being in Grade 1 (1951) and being punished for reading when I had finished my work by having my hands smacked with a ruler several times. My hands were red and sore when I got home so I went and hid in a closet where my mother found me and asked why my hands were so red. I told her that I was trying to read my book when the lessons were all done and the other children were still working.

The treatment that the children received at the residential school was so much worse; they had to live there and wear a uniform and obey 24 hours a day. The treatment of the children in the residential schools did not improve whereas in the public system a six year old was not punished in the way that I was by the time we had moved into the late 50s and certainly not for reading in spare time after their work was completed. 

Never again really; we must never let this happen and we must hear their stories. But especially we need to know the names of all of these children; know their ages and why they died. They should receive proper burials with headstones.