the system we inherited

the school system most of us know today was not always here. for most of human history, children learned through the people and places around them. family, community, language, work, story, land, observation and experience were all part of how knowledge moved.

as european states became more centralized, governments also became more involved in education. prussia became one influential example of a larger state-run school system. teachers were trained, curriculum became more organized, attendance became more formalized, and governments gained more control over what large groups of children were learning.

there were useful reasons for public education. literacy mattered. access to learning mattered. but governments also understood that schools could help shape a population. they could teach a shared language, a national story, ideas about citizenship, religion, authority, discipline and what it meant to be a good member of society.

those ideas travelled. education reformers in north america studied school systems in europe and elsewhere while building their own. horace mann in the united states and egerton ryerson in what became ontario both looked outside their own jurisdictions for models as public education became more centralized.

it is important not to flatten that history into one simple story where prussia invented modern school and everybody copied it exactly. that is not what happened. public education developed through many influences. what matters for us is understanding that these systems were designed inside societies that already carried ideas about authority, religion, work, citizenship and social order.

as industrial capitalism grew, education also became more connected to employment, credentials and preparation for the economy. over time, a path many of us know well became normal: go to school, graduate, get more education, find a career, make more money, keep moving up.

there is nothing wrong with wanting a degree, a good job or financial stability. the problem is when one path starts being treated like the only path, or when we start believing that someone with more credentials automatically knows more, that a child struggling in a classroom is less intelligent, or that our value depends on how productive we can be.

school did not create all of those ideas by itself. capitalism, colonialism, religion, workplaces, media, family and government all overlap. we are not looking for one person or institution to blame. we are learning to see the architecture around us so we have more say in how it shapes our lives.

when education became a colonial weapon

for Indigenous peoples, institutional education carries another history entirely. colonial governments did not arrive on turtle island and meet people who had no education. our peoples were already teaching our children.

children learned language from the people around them. they learned the land by being on it. they learned through family, story, ceremony, harvesting, hunting, making, observation, responsibility and participation in community. they were learning practical skills, but they were also learning who they were, where they came from and what responsibilities they carried.

that matters when we talk about residential schools because the colonial project was not simply bringing education to Indigenous children. it was trying to interrupt an education that already existed.

in 1847, egerton ryerson was asked by indian affairs to give recommendations about industrial schools for Indigenous children. his recommendations centred christian religious instruction, labour and church involvement, with government funding and oversight.

then in 1879, nicholas flood davin was sent by the canadian government to study industrial boarding schools for Indigenous children in the united states. one of the most revealing parts of his report is how he talked about day schools. children could attend during the day, but afterward they went home. they returned to their parents, languages, communities and ways of understanding the world. from the government's perspective, those relationships were getting in the way of assimilation.

the response was separation. children had to be removed from the people who were already educating them. that is why residential schooling became about much more than a curriculum. it targeted family, language, ceremony, community, identity and relationship to land.

the federal government funded and regulated the residential school system while christian churches operated many of the institutions. children were taken from home, many were punished for speaking their languages, christianity was imposed, and children experienced devastating physical, emotional, sexual, cultural and spiritual violence. by 1920, compulsory attendance had been written into the indian act for many Indigenous children. the truth and reconciliation commission later described the larger project as cultural genocide.

that history is heavy, but we do not want to stop the story at what colonial institutions did to us. we also need to ask what they were trying so hard to interrupt.

they were trying to interrupt families that knew how to raise their children. languages that carried entire ways of understanding the world. communities that could pass knowledge between generations. laws, ceremonies, stories and relationships to land that existed long before canada.

and those things survived.

our people kept teaching each other. languages survived. ceremonies survived. land-based knowledge survived. stories survived. families carried things forward through generations of violence and interruption. residential schools did not prove Indigenous education was weak. the scale of the effort to destroy it tells us how powerful it was.

the education that never left

this is where we want to move the energy. learning this history should not leave us believing the institution has all the power. if anything, it reminds us that education has never belonged only to schools.

our kids can go to school. we can go to university. we can earn credentials, learn from good teachers and use the opportunities institutions can give us. but we do not have to depend on those institutions to provide the deepest parts of our education.

the real meat and potatoes still comes from people, land and lived experience. who is teaching our kids where they come from? who is teaching them how to care for other people, how to be in community, how to make and fix things, how to feed themselves, how to listen to elders, how to recover when they mess up, how to understand the land they live on, and how to know themselves?

we cannot outsource all of that. and there is something powerful about realizing we do not have to wait for an institution to get it right before we start building the education we want around us.

we can teach each other. somebody knows how to sew. somebody knows the language. somebody knows medicines. somebody knows how to hunt or grow food. somebody knows how to organize. somebody remembers the family stories. somebody knows the land. somebody has lived through something we have not. we do not each need to know everything. that is what community is for.

depending on community is not the opposite of depending on ourselves. collective self-determination has never meant every person standing alone. it means we build enough knowledge, relationship and capacity between us that we are not forced to depend entirely on institutions to tell us how to live.

land-based education is a huge part of that. and we do not mean taking one class outside and calling it decolonized. land holds knowledge that cannot always be fully understood from a book or a screen. you have to be there. you have to watch. you have to learn from people who have relationships with those places. you have to notice what changes through the seasons and understand what responsibilities come with living there.

for Indigenous peoples, so much of our language, law, food, medicine, stories and ways of understanding ourselves come through relationship with land. many of us are reconnecting after generations of interruption, and that can start small. learn one word. go out with family. ask someone from your nation. learn the water around you. listen to a knowledge keeper. learn one teaching and carry it properly.

for non-Indigenous people, land-based learning does not mean collecting Indigenous teachings because they sound meaningful. learn whose territory you live on. listen to the nations from that territory. support their stewardship and sovereignty. learn your own responsibilities as somebody living there. relationship is different from taking.

we also need to know how to move through institutions without surrendering ourselves to them. a credential can open a door without becoming the thing that decides how smart you are. a career can support your life without deciding your worth. a teacher can know a lot without knowing everything. an institution can teach you something without becoming the final authority over what a meaningful life is supposed to look like.

this is what knowledge gives us: more choice. once we understand where systems came from and what they were built to value, we can notice when those values are making decisions for us. we can question the pressure to constantly produce, the fear of falling behind, the belief that there is one correct path, or the idea that we have to wait for permission before learning something for ourselves.

our minds are precious because what we believe shapes how we live. it shapes what we chase, what we tolerate, what we fear, what we teach our kids and what futures we are able to imagine. protecting our minds does not mean closing them. it means using them.

learn widely. ask questions. listen to people who know things you do not. change your mind when new knowledge asks you to. learn your history. learn from the land. learn from community. understand when an institution is giving you a useful tool and when it is trying to convince you that the tool is the whole world.

we do not have to wait for governments, schools or institutions to build all of this for us. we can put education back into our homes, communities, languages, art, organizing and relationships with land. we can teach our children things before the institution gets there and keep teaching them when they come home.

the institution can be part of our education. it does not have to be the centre of it.

the history is heavy, but knowing it gives us somewhere to move from. we know why education has been used as a tool of control, and we also know why our people fought so hard to keep teaching each other anyway. now we take that knowledge and use it.

we keep learning together.