Indian children of Canada: Educational services and mental health

Summary

In this brief essay on educational services for Indian children in Canada we have tried to convey some of the complexity of the situation, as well as reviewing briefly the history and structure of the services and a few of the changes presently in process. To summarize this material we will quote from the Hawthorn report:

The schooling of Indian children today raises many questions. School for some of them is unpleasant, frightening and painful. For these and for some others it is not so much adaptive as maladaptive. They have little reason to like or to be interested in the school in any way, in or out of the classroom, and it does not provide a path to the jobs some expect from it. Preliminary studies indicate that their motivation to do well in school drops during their stay there. They fail to reach their potential as scholars. They fall behind from the beginning and come to see themselves as failures. Their schooling is not justified by results and moreover they are unhappy in it. A pattern that is followed by a few White children is followed by many, perhaps most, Indian children.