The Survivors Speak

Hiding the truth
“A guilty conscience and a bad attitude.”
Some lessons the schools taught too well: many students commented that one of the
legacies of their time at residential schools was the ability to hide their feelings and give
the responses that were needed to ‘get by.’ Margaret Simpson, who attended the Fort
Chipewyan, Alberta, school, described it as a survival technique.
I learned how to lie, to lie so that I will get away with whatever Sister wanted me to
do and that whatever she wanted to hear, that’s what I told her even if it was a lie. So
it got easier and I got pretty good at lying and I had a real time to get out of that lying
as I got older in life to be able to tell the truth and to know the difference of what was
happening because of that lie that it became such a habit for me. I had a real hard
time even after I left the residential school. 413
Ken A. Littledeer said that at the Sioux Lookout school, he was taught “how to lie, I
learned how to steal, to be mischievous.” 414
Noel Knockwood said that at the Shubenacadie school, he learned to fake submission.
“We learned how to play the game and acknowledged and bowed our heads in agreement
and whatever they said we agreed with them, because
they were too powerful to fight and they were too strong
to, to, for us to change their, their habits and their ways
of living.” 415
John B. Custer learned to rebel at residential school.
The only things he took away from his years at the
Roman Catholic school near The Pas, Manitoba, were
a guilty conscience and a bad attitude. So instead
of learning anything in that residential school, we,
we learned just the opposite from good. We learned
how to steal, we learned how to fight, we learned
how to cheat, we learned how to lie. And to tell the Noel Knockwood.
truth, I thought I was gonna go to hell, so I didn’t
give a shit. I was sort of a rebel in the residential school. I didn’t listen, so I was always
being punished. 416
Hazel Ewanchuk attended two residential schools in southern Manitoba, where she
learned that love was a lie.