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VANCOUVER AND TORONTO — Ojibwa writer Richard Wagamese went out on a limb last month, stating in a newspaper column that for some students, residential school might have been a godsend, “or at least, a stepping stone to a more empowered future.”
Mr. Wagamese cited his mother, who attended residential school as a child and spoke to him not of catastrophic experiences but instead of how she learned to cook and clean and sew, skills he saw reflected in her tidy home.
In broaching the subject of possible good in residential schools, Mr. Wagamese ventured into fraught territory.
It's generally taboo for residential school survivors to speak about their good experiences because they don't want to play down the more common stories of abuse, said Ted Binnema, a history professor at the University of Northern British Columbia in Prince George.
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“At a time like this, any person is going to feel some pressure just to be quiet if their experiences were positive in residential schools, not because they're native people but because it's human nature.”
Jim Miller, Canada research chair in Native Newcomer Relations at the University of Saskatchewan, said those who had positive experiences are willing to talk, but the media hasn't been listening.
“From very early days in the 1990s, the story got framed as a story of abuse. Pure and simple. I can understand how that would happen, but it's had an effect of oversimplifying the story,” Mr. Miller said.
Reached Wednesday at her home, Mr. Wagamese's mother, Marjorie Nabish, said she rarely spoke of her residential school experience to her children because to do so made her sad – and because she feared they would see such disclosures as attempts to excuse her own missteps, which include a battle with alcoholism and giving up her children when she became unable to care for them.
“It was too hard. I didn't want them to know what I went through,” Ms. Nabish said. She's been sober since 1972, she said, and is now on good terms with her children, including Mr. Wagamese, who writes a column in The Calgary Herald and is the author of several books.
Mr. Wagamese said he did not discount the pain and suffering endured by many who attended residential schools but wanted to acknowledge another side of the picture.
“I tend to believe in the goodness and the humanity of the people who were members of those church organizations and that they followed through on their vows and went to help what they perceived as children in need,” Mr. Wagamese said.
“I can't possibly believe that every one of those people functioning as missionaries and clergy were predators.”
Ms. Nabish was 8 when she was taken from her parents to attend the Cecilia Jeffery School near Kenora, Ont. Born into a large family that lived in the bush, she'd never seen running water or a bathtub and was so terrified of both that the only way she could be persuaded to get in the tub was when her older sister got in with her.
She recalls being strapped several times, including one occasion when she and a friend were punished for skipping during a teachers meeting when students were supposed to remain quiet in a room next door.
Ms. Nabish's daughter, Kathy Bird, Wednesday said that her mother has talked more in recent years about her time at residential school, discussions that have helped Ms. Bird cope with her anger over her mother's drinking and neglect as Ms. Bird was growing up.
“All my resentments toward my mother more or less are gone. What happened to her happened to us as a family,” Ms. Bird said.
The ripple effects of residential schools on successive generations are expected to be discussed through the truth and reconciliation commission.
Whether the experience was positive or negative, residential schools still tore children from their parents and culture, said Lawrence Berg, Canada Research Chair and co-director of the Centre for Social, Spatial and Economic Justice at the University of British Columbia.
He uses kidnapping as an analogy.
“While some people who are kidnapped are treated well by their captors, that doesn't excuse the act of kidnapping in the first place. Nor does it negate the fact that many kidnappings involve physical, sexual and psychological abuse, and that many kidnapping victims wind up being killed,” he said.
