We Were Children

Use the reflection questions to inspire your thoughts and feelings about the film. They are not meant to be homework questions that are taken up one by one, but rather prompts to conversation to help us locate ourselves in a new story.

(See a printable version below)

Watch We Were Children

Colonization, Worldview, and the Indian Residential School System

Consider these themes relevant to the reconciliation process:

1. Worldview is the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing the entirety of the individual or society's knowledge and point of view. It refers to the framework of ideas and beliefs forming a global description through which an individual, group or culture watches and interprets the world and interacts with it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_view

2. Self-Determination is the “free choice of one's own acts or states without external compulsion and/or a “determination by the people of a territorial unit of their own future political status.” https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/self%E2%80%93determination

3. Paternalism is “a system under which an authority undertakes to supply needs or regulate conduct of those under its control in matters affecting them as individuals as well as in their relations to authority and to each other” or “the attitude or actions of a person, organization, etc., that protects people and gives them what they need but does not give them any responsibility or freedom of choice (agency).” https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/paternalism

The historical maintenance of cultural, political, and territorial autonomy between Indigenous nations of North America resulted in a sophisticated system of treaty making, a system that depended on trust and honouring one’s word. At contact, and in the Canadian context, Europeans and Indigenous people first lived in relative harmony, despite their differences in worldview. The one thing they held in common was an ability to negotiate business deals (treaties) and many agreements were reached in good faith. Eventually, their differences (in particular, European idealism) became the foundation for abuses against First Nations: the European pursuit of land "ownership" and resource management through settler colonization, discrepancies between written and oral agreements, and concepts of civility and religion, (namely who is civilized and who has moral or religious authority). At its most basic level, Eurocentric assimilation conflicts with the Indigenous ethic of non-interference. Ignoring and rejecting the inherent rights of Indigenous People to self-determination helped to impose and then reinforce new systems of Eurocentric governance and control.

Paternalism has infiltrated systems of relating and engaging between Eurocentric and Indigenous neighbours from first contact until present day. There is a real danger in a paternalistic approach as one person's idealism can result in another person's devastation. The Indian Residential School System is one example of this: one of many ways in which the Canadian Government intentionally and systemically forced their Indigenous neighbours to fully absorb into the Canadian body. As we learn about the effects of the Indian Residential School System, we can reflect on the origins of our own experiences and assumptions and celebrate the unique ways our shared histories have come back to a new beginning. By honouring rather than denigrating the differences and similarities between our worldviews, truth, healing, and reconciliation becomes the process for Indigenous and non-Indigenous people to renew relationships and restore balance.

Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP), Restructuring the Relationship, vol. 2, Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples in For Seven Generations: an Information Legacy of Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (Ottawa: Canada Communications Group, 1996)

Reflection Questions:

Worldview

How has my personal worldview evolved in my lifetime or intergenerationally? Where can I see my worldview reflected in both Eurocentric or Indigenous ways of knowing/being? What are the differences?

Power

What is my experience of power dynamics? What did I learn from being in a position of power? What did I learn from being in a position of vulnerability? What role did trust play?

Connecting with Trauma

What life challenge or traumatic event have I experienced, either personally or through someone that I have had a close relationship with? How does my experience negatively influence the decisions I have made to be where I am today? What were the lasting impacts?

Relating with Resilience

How was the traumatic event overcome, if at all? What resilience strategies or coping mechanisms were employed? How does my experience positively influence the decisions I have made to be where I am today? What assumptions are made about me (perceived or actual) because of the experience? What assumptions did I make toward any other people involved? How have those assumptions been challenged or changed?

Colonization

Systems of oppression thrive by rendering people invisible: from resettling Indigenous peoples to reservations to ‘killing the Indian in the child” to omitting abusive events from history books. Learning a difficult truth is the beginning of healing past wrongs and building new relationships. What am I “seeing” in the films or handouts that I struggle with understanding? What have I seen that has changed my perspective?

Our Shared History

What is my role and/or responsibility to healing the broken relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people? How can I honour our shared history? How do I overcome such a painful history? What is mine to carry, not to carry? How can I honour our shared history?

We Were Children

Film