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Catholic Church's role downplayed: MLA


Danielle Sachs
Northern News Services
Published Monday, March 04, 2013

NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
Sahtu MLA Norman Yakeleya is slamming the new residential school component of the Northern Studies curriculum taught in NWT high schools, arguing it downplays the Roman Catholic Church's involvement in residential schools.

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Sahtu MLA Norman Yakeleya said he feels the new residential school component of the Northern Studies curriculum ignores the involvement of the Roman Catholic Church. - Danielle Sachs/NNSL photo

"Grollier Hall had four supervisors who were sexual pedophiles. Years we suffered in silence under the cloak of the Roman Catholic Church," said Yakeleya, referring to the residential school in Inuvik he attended as a child starting at age six. It closed in 1996.

"We don't see that in here, how we were affected with the God and the religion. That's some key information you're missing. That's what we lived, to put this out there and not to mention the Roman Catholic Church in there is an injustice to me. So I want to ask why isn't that in there? Why isn't the truth being told about the truth?"

Yakeleya spoke during a public briefing Feb. 26 from the Department of Education, Culture and Employment to the legislative assembly's standing committee on social programs regarding the new residential school curriculum that began last fall. The residential school section is just one component of the newly revamped Northern Studies program that is mandatory for all high school students in the NWT.

Grollier Hall was one of 14 residential schools operating in the NWT at one time or another, and the last to close, although the Catholic Church was no longer running it by the 1990s. The GNWT took it over in 1987.

"It's like passing through a door from one world to another world," said Yakeleya, of his arrival at Grollier Hall.

"You entered into new worlds and belief systems. The food is different, the teaching and even the growing up is different."

The current residential school curriculum is considered the first edition, said John Stewart, co-ordinator of social studies and Northern studies with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. He said the program is focused more on the stories of former students rather than the institutions in which they were placed. The study unit is built around interviews with people who lived through residential schools, which are included in the course materials in a DVD.

"Some of these people have become leaders in a wide variety of fields and were willing to share their stories for the benefit of the next generation," said Stewart.

"The point of exploring these issues with high school students shouldn't be to depress them or to talk only about terrible things, there's enough terrible things related to residential schools for sure. But their gift, I think, was for them to say, 'What we want for our young people is that they don't carry this rock for another generation.'

"This is considered the first edition, this summer we'll be publishing the second edition once feedback is final."

Scott Willoughby, head of the social studies department at Sir John Franklin High School in Yellowknife, which operated a government-run residential school dorm at Akaitcho Hall until 1994, taught the section on residential schools this year and said it's a comprehensive look at the past, present and future.

"It went through everything from the very beginning, like what was the philosophy behind it from the government, then the churches' involvement and then how things were supposed to be going but then how they ended up going instead," said Willoughby.

"Then there's a pretty long section about overcoming the effects of residential schools and where things are now. They do the best they can do with the curriculum and the church is a big part of it but it wasn't the only part because there's other curricula out there that dwell on the history and the abuse of it and this talks about that but that's not the focus of it."

Willoughby said the residential school unit has definitely led to a lot of discussion with students, some of whom had parents in residential schools.

Jackson Lafferty, minister of Education, Culture and Employment, said there will be changes between this current edition and the one due out in the summer.

"These are our stories and our history. This is the very brand new curriculum of its kind," said Lafferty.

"Along the way, obviously there is going to be some changes and some enhancement on the curriculum. I'm taking all that into consideration."

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