Lillian Mullings-Findleter
Assignment 3: Final course reflection
1. Please think about your learning journey in this course. Choose one or more experiences from the
course to focus on for this reflection. What is the Experience/Event/Focus of the reflection you have
chosen? Summarize it using specific examples.
• Reading and or hearing first persons accounts about native peoples time in residential and
day schools has been a very interesting and eye opening experience for me during this
course. For example for assignment two I read a heartbreaking and endearing story about a
Native woman named Lillian who went to a residential school in the Northwest Territories in
the 50’s. She and all the children there were treated horribly by the catholic sect that ran it,
they were physically and verbally abused by staff and other older students, fed rotting food
and forced to do dangerous manual labour so that they would forget their traditions and
cultures. Yet Lillian refused to break and secretly continued to learn her language whenever
she could as an act of rebellion
2. What were the key moments/lessons of the experience that were most important to you? What was
your “aha” moment?
• The key moment within learning about residential and day schools experiences and history’s
is the small acts of rebellion and protest that so many indigenous children took part in
despite of what would and or could happen to them if they were ever caught. Recently
countless children who died on residential school properties are found, children that
probably died during punishment for not following the ridiculous rules set by the church.
Even though they constantly went through verbal abuse that their culture, traditions, and
religions were wrong and savage and that if they practiced them instead of the teachings of
the church, they would go to hell and burn for all eternity. Yet in defiance of these lies
coming from adults that they were suppose to trust and listen to and despite probably
watching children get killed or severely wounded, children like Lillian still chose to practice
parts of their tradition so that it would not be lost with them.
3. Why were these moments/experiences important to you, what did you gain/learn from this
experience?
• This lesson was important to me because I learned about the history of Canada the
government tries to hide and make light of. In school we do learn about indigenous peoples
and there past and current struggles but we never hear it or read it From a first person
account. Instead we get all the information clinically from a textbook with statistics that treat
native people like numbers and not survivors. Also I learned from all of the brave indigenous
peoples that I read about that even one small act of rebellion and or protest can make a
huge difference to you and future generations. For example some acts of rebellion and
protest that indigenous people use to do was secretly practicing traditions, continuing to use
their own language and burning down residential schools.
Lillian Mullings-Findleter
4. How can you try out what you have learned or put these lessons into practical action in the future in
your current life or future career? Perhaps even consider which of the Calls to Action you could apply
here.
• I will put what I learned from these brave indigenous peoples small acts of protest and
rebellions in to action by continuing to learn and teach about my culture even though I am
constantly being told by people and society to let it go and or leave the past in the past. My
family is Afro - Caribbean and much of our history is similar to what happened to indigenous
people except our history is not written down comprehensively in any one place. I have
always wanted to learn more about my cultural background but lots of information has been
omitted from history books and the information included can be lies and misinformation.
Most recently the United States of America has been fighting to erase parts of my history by
getting rid of critical race theory in textbooks. I am afraid that this will start to become a
trend within North America through fear mongering. So like Native peoples I will start to
fight so that future generations can continue to learn about my history and maybe even
learn more than I did.