What were schools?

Answer 1

Residential schools were isolated schools where aboriginal children were forced away from their families home and culture and were forced to adapt into a white society. these schools were run by the roman catholic church. The aboriginal children who were sent there were often separated by gender, were forced to learn English or french. If they were caught speaking native tongue they would be beaten, locked in closets without food, humiliated, and often were raped.

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Schools where you resided were called Residential Schools. Canada's population was spread across the land and often children had to travel considerable distances to attend school. Residential schools or boarding schools addressed those problems by having children live and often work at schools which were usually far away from home but near major population centres.

Today the term usually refers to Canada's aboriginal policy of having racial segregated residential schools off the reserves. These residential schools were run and operated by non-aboriginals and resulted in so much abuse that their history has been apologized for by Canada. We still have racial segregated schools but now they are operated by the Aboriginals themselves and bear no resemblance to the residential schools of the past.