Teaching Indigenous Education

Content warning: Please note that the information found in this guide can be distressing and harmful to some. Take care when engaging with the material and if you need assistance, please call Hope for Wellness Helpline that is available 24/7 to all Indigenous People across Canada - on the phone or online.

Welcome.
This section provides resources to help you teach and learn about the history and lasting impacts of Residential Schools in Canada. You'll find background information, lesson plans, survivor stories, books, and videos designed to support respectful, age-appropriate teaching across grade levels.

Why Teach About Residential Schools?

Understanding Residential Schools is essential for truth, reconciliation, and healing. Teaching this history helps students recognize the experiences of Indigenous Peoples, the impacts of colonialism, and the ongoing importance of Indigenous rights and voices today.

Residential School education must be approached with care. Always prioritize Indigenous-created resources where possible and be sensitive to the emotional weight of this topic for students, especially Indigenous students. Create safe, supportive spaces for reflection, and allow time for students to process what they are learning.

Photo: CBC Article, (Originally from Library and Archives Canada / PA-042133)

For over a hundred years Indigenous children, often very young, were taken from their families and kept in government-funded, church-run residential schools, often far from their homes. The aim of these schools was to remove parental influence, spiritual, cultural and intellectual, from the children. Children often suffered abuse under terrible conditions. In recent years, work has begun to seek a process of reconciliation and healing for the trauma suffered by these children and their families, including the descendants of the residential school survivors.

This guide highlights current resources on residential schools in Canada available through University of Alberta Library.