I Really Didn’t Like Anything
- Nishnawbe Aski Nation, 2005 -
I went to residential school when I was thirteen years old. Everything was so different from my life at home in the bush. I did not have to kill animals for food because the school provided our food. The weather was not as important because I would never get stuck miles away from home, and I did not have to cross rivers or lakes to get somewhere during the winter. I lived in a huge building with lots of rooms. My bedroom was huge and about forty other kids slept there. The bad part was I had to go to classes at the school and learn how to speak English. The people who ran the school were not nice to me or to the other kids. When I made mistakes I was punished. The teacher yelled at me and sometimes gave me the strap in front of everyone else in the class. I did not like the food. I did not like the school. I did not like the “big bedroom”. I did not like sleeping with forty other kids. I did not like being punished, and I did not like the people who punished me. When I think of my residential school experience, I didn’t like anything.
