|Assignment #2 |
|Educational Issues and Social Change I: Historical Social Perspectives |

Assignment #2

Question #1

Compare the “hidden curriculum” identified by S. Contenta with the underlying norms and values of “Indian education” highlighted in the video the Mission school syndrome and in the readings by Titley, Levaque, Gresko and Wilson. (750-1000 word)

Although education was meant for all children, education for Aboriginal children clearly had a hidden curriculum. It has been mentioned in all of the readings and the movie that the main objective was to civilize them into the White culture which included the teaching of the English Language (reading, writing and speaking), religion, agriculture and other trade skills necessary to live in a “White’s man world”, where “the primary motive was to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”[1] However, the interpretation of the events of those days differs in perspective between the religious groups and the Native people.

As Europeans immigrated to Canada and settled on the lands where Aboriginals hunted and lived, themselves hunting the same animals as the Natives (for sport rather than survival) and restricting the territory forcing Aboriginals onto reserves or residential schools. The Whites did not understand this way of life even thinking that it was barbaric and savage. Consequently the government and religious groups wanted ‘to provide native children with the opportunity to learn about the Catholic faith. Another ultimate goal was to ensure the children’s acquisition of the skills required to make their way in the new society which was beginning to surround and engulf them.” [2]

“The Indians needed more skills than his own