There are 132 sites of former Residential Schools in Canada, and there has been much discussion about what to do with them. Some say to tear them down while others say to claim them and use them for some good purpose.

Initially, most of the residential schools operated as small day schools and were located close to First Nation and Métis communities or reserves, however, around the 1910's, it was determined that this was detrimental to the "civilizing" of FNM children. Since they continued to speak their mother-tongue and to receive Indigenous education from family and community members, day schools were failing to assimilate them. 

In the Department or Indian Affairs, also constructed several industrial schools closer to urban centres, in accordance with the recommendations made by MP Nicholas Flood Davin, who, in his notorious Report on Industrial Schools for Indians and Half Breeds (1879), praised American policy of “aggression civilization”. The industrial schools provided vocational gender-based training to Indigenous girls and boys who could gain the skills to perform subservient or low-level economic jobs in settler societies. Training Indigenous students to become workers in industrialized capitalist societies was a form of assimilation, as it served to remove them from their communities and integrate them into urban settler areas. 

The act of separating Indigenous children based on gender, a social construct, was another form of assimilation. Indigenous cultures, had different understandings of gender and roles, Prior to contact with settlers, many Indigenous cultures were accepting of Two-Spirit people ("niizh-manidoowag" in Anishinaabe, a term founded at the third Native American/First Nations Gay and Lesbian Conference in Winnipeg in 1990, describing a person with both a masculine and a feminine spirit) and even revered them.

Attendance at the industrial vocational schools was voluntary and children would be absent during certain important periods of time, such as for ceremonies and hunting trips.

The curriculum was also supposedly weak, leaving Indigenous students unable to compete with Europeans for the very low-lever jobs the government desperately wanted them to find. The government saw this as resistance to assimilation and became frustrated, which resulted in the creation of mandatory residential schools and legislation for compulsory education for Indigenous children in 1920, as was already the case for non-Indigenous Canadians.

In 1910's, the Canadian government and the Department of Indian Affairs decided that it would be most cost-effective to turn First Nation and Métis communities into an agrarian class. They would be dislocated, dispossessed and displaced to reserves, in some cases far from their homes and their known environment. 

The new residential schools were closer than industrial schools to reserves , and were designed to provide better ventilation and more roomy compartments for the children, in order to help stave off influenza and tuberculosis. 

After 1920, Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families and communities to board at and attend residential schools. Many were so far away that children had to drive for days or fly, and that they couldn't return home until the summer. 

When the students first arrived, their sacred braids were cut off, they were doused in lice treatment powder and scrubbed clean until they bled. The curriculum taught them that everything that was white was pure and good and superior and that which was Indigenous was ignorant, "uncivilized" and inferior. 

The curriculum was delivered by the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches, and consisted of religious education, basic language lessons, and skills-based learning, which some describe as forced labour. Students were prohibited from speaking their mother-tongue and there were severe consequences for those who did, including mouth-washings with soap, beatings and, in extremely cases, tongue piercing. They were segregated by gender and age and weren't allowed to speak with their siblings, family or community members.  Conditions in the schools were horrific; children were malnourished, and living in overcrowded conditions where disease spread quickly. The children were physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually and sexually abused by the very people to who were responsible for their safety and well-being, Catholic and Anglican clergy. 

Many become ashamed of their culture and began to hate their parents for the curse of their culture, and to this day suffer from low levels of self-esteem and well-being. Too many were sexually abused.  

Duncan Campbell Scott, the superintendent of the Department of Indian Affairs from  1913 - 1932 argued for residential schools, stating that “our best men and women were brought up, away from the home influences and following the example, day and night, of their teachers." 

1. Dark and drab in appearance (like a factory and producing little workers for capitalist systems);

2. Two - four stories high, with a basement;

3. Brick (sturdy and strong);

4. H-shaped design;

5. Prominent entrance capped by a spire (alluding to religion);

6. Often some steps leading up the front entrance (in order to create importance and grandiosity);

7. British or Canadian flag flying high (in case anyone forgot whose territory they were on);

8. A chapel in each school, regardless of denomination (in order to relay to the crucial value of religion and the church);

9. With a Central Block flanked by two attached pavilions (reminiscent of our Parliament buildings);

10. The Centre Block usually housed administrative offices and staff quarters (those most important, and charged with the important work of assimilation);

11. The east and west pavilions is where students resided, segregated according to gender and age (in order to destroy sibling and family bonds were destroyed).

12. According to Geoffrey Carr, "floor plans for all of the schools were highly standardized, each institution laid out with a similar series of classes, kitchens, dormitories, bathrooms, infirmaries, staff sleeping quarters, workshops, sewing rooms, recreation rooms, and so on" (in order to depict order, uniformity and the fact that the education being received was going to prepare students for assembly line work);

13. The “Indians Parlour (or Indians Room)” which is where students would meet with their parents when they came to visit. Visitors would enter the parlour directly from the outside, while children would enter the parlour from an inside doorway. This ensured that visitors were limited in what they saw of the school. Visits were closely monitored to deny children and family the opportunity to speak in their mother-tongue (further decomposing family bonds and distancing children from parents); 

14. The “Monitor Room” was an area from which staff could observe children in their dormitories without their knowledge (like Big Brother, like any enforced system);