Kanopy Picks for Residential Schools

Check out one of these FREE-to-stream videos on the topic of Residential Schools.

These videos are available through TBPL’s new video streaming service Kanopy, available on your smart TV, Roku, tablet, and more. Each month, you can view four different films from this service. Visit our webpage for more info and how to get started.

Beyond the Shadows : A powerful documentary about the legacy of Native Residential Schools (Missionary Schools), Beyond the Shadows is a 28 minute documentary about the far-reaching and emotionally devastating effects of residential/boarding schools on the Native population in Canada. This film relates the historical background of these government mandated schools while also depicting painful personal experiences. The Program raises many significant issues for the Native people and provides tools for dealing with the trauma of residential schools within their communities or organizations.

Smoke from His Fire : A bittersweet story of how a people survived. Seventy-five years ago the nobility of the Kwakwaka’wakw of the Pacific Northwest Coast, chose a young man, secluded him from the authorities when his peers were sent to Residential School. The elders trained him in every aspect of the culture and traditions of his people.
Today, caught between two worlds, he is needed more than ever by his people to reclaim their teachings. Few people survived who speak the language he was trained in to transmit his culture. Adam Dick or Kwaxsistala is the Clan Chief of the origin story of his nation and the last orally trained Potlatch Speaker. This is a story of hope, courage and endurance.

It’s So Much Work to Be Your Friend : Drawing on three decades of experience in residential schools, Rick Lavoie provides powerful strategies for teaching friendship skills in the classroom, the homefront, and the community. First, you’ll explore the causes and consequences of “social incompetence.” Then, you’ll gain field-tested advice on how to help children work through daily social struggles and go from being picked on and isolated to becoming accepted and involved.

Edmund Metatawabin : Interview with Edmund Metatawabin, a Cree leader and author who has radical lessons for anyone trying to quit an oppressive, wage-based way of life, and for an industrial society that is struggling to become sustainable. This Green Interview covers an enormous range of subjects, providing alternative views of work, the economy, the nature of community, land ownership, and a community’s long-term values and its sense of time. Metatawabin also gives a candid and horrifying account of his time in residential school, where he and so many others experienced cruelty and life-altering abuse.