QIBS, A Journey of Truth and Healing

Friends are invited into a deep consideration of the historical reality of the Quaker Indigenous Boarding Schools (QIBS), the felt experience of traveling on a path of truth and healing, the particulars of archival research, and possible next steps for individual Friends and our meetings. What was the role of Quakers in assimilation through education…

Workshop Description

Friends are invited into a deep consideration of the historical reality of the Quaker Indigenous Boarding Schools (QIBS), the felt experience of traveling on a path of truth and healing, the particulars of archival research, and possible next steps for individual Friends and our meetings.

What was the role of Quakers in assimilation through education (what many have acknowledged as cultural genocide), and what responsibility do we have for the ongoing harm to Indigenous communities across the continent? Our predecessors thought the boarding schools were a great good, yet they caused ongoing harm; how can Friends avoid such pitfalls in the present?

Through a mix of experiences, Friends are invited to come along on this sometimes-arduous journey of truth and healing. Each day will begin with grounding in worship and ample time for worship sharing along the way, especially in Friday’s closing session. In a manner of trauma-informed practice, we will also attend to the emotional and spiritual pulse of the group and pause when necessary to re-ground and center our life in Spirit, remembering always the people most impacted by the traumas of the past that reverberate in the present.

We will acknowledge the living land and the people of the land. Elders will hold the space.

Examples of methodologies, some of which will be used in each session:

• Pair-share: A quiet written reflection followed by an opportunity to share with a partner.
• Group readings: Participants are given an excerpt from a seminal text. As they quietly read through, they are invited to read aloud passages that speak to them.
• Breathing and grounding exercises; somatic intelligence
• Active imagination/guided meditation, for example, on the ‘first day of school,’ children wearing their best blanket and new moccasins from Zitkala Å a’s memoir.

This workshop series will follow on from the ministry of Friend Paula Palmer, who has devoted nearly a decade to understanding Indigenous life and experience and addressing the harms of colonization, especially the boarding school era (see friendspeaceteams.org/trr). We will begin with sharing the presentation, “The Quaker Indigenous Boarding Schools: Facing Our History and Ourselves,” which focuses specifically on the re-education of Indigenous children through institutions that either involved or were run by Quakers, such as the Carlisle Indian Industrial School and White’s Indiana Manual Labor Institute.

Today, Paula is joined by a cadre of Friends who are focused on archival research in direct response to an appeal from NABS (National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition) and Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland “” for religious entities to go into their archives and make their boarding school records available. The QIBS (Quaker Indigenous Boarding School) Research Network, now an extension of TRR, has been meeting for more than a year to consolidate findings from a growing number of yearly meetings, to share research strategies, and to deeply consider Quaker involvement.

This workshop is a chance to travel alongside Quaker archival researchers and share the experience “” the transformative power of more truths coming to light.

Potential associated costs: All materials will be provided. Participants joining the pilgrimage to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School will be encouraged to carpool in small groups.

OPTIONAL ACTIVITY:
On the closing day of the conference, Saturday, July 6, Andrew Grant will be convening a pilgrimage to the site of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School (2 hour drive from Haverford), departing after lunch. We will follow the illustrated walking tour by Kate Theimer (or Kate may join us in person as tour leader). The tour will be approximately 2 1/2 hours “” visiting the grounds and imagining how the space was used in the late 1800s. The tour will culminate at the cemetery to acknowledge the 138 Indigenous children who were removed from their villages and brought to the school but did not survive. We will also hold space for an untold number of children sent home from Carlisle when sick “” who soon died at home or en route. (Alternatively, this pilgrimage to Carlisle could happen on the prior Saturday, June 29.)

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RECOMMENDED ADVANCED READING OR VIEWING:

American Indian Stories by Zitkala Å a (1921)
Chapters 1-3: “Impressions of an Indian Childhood,” The School Days of an Indian Girl,” and “An Indian Teacher Among Indians”
https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/zitkala-sa/stories/stories.html

“Quaker Indian Boarding Schools” Friends Journal article by Paula Palmer (2016) https://www.friendsjournal.org/quaker-indian-boarding-schools/

A Very Correct Idea of Our School: A Photographic History of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School by Kate Theimer (2018)
Featuring quotes from former student Luther Standing Bear.
https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_Very_Correct_Idea_of_Our_School/MVg3vAEACAAJ

Bonus suggestion: Ted Talk by Kathryn Schulz (2011), “On Being Wrong”
https://www.ted.com/talks/kathryn_schulz_on_being_wrong

Leader Experience

I have extensive experience in small group processes, including formal training as a sociocracy facilitator (sociocracyforall.org). I am a certified presenter for Paula Palmer’s Roots of Injustice, Seeds of Change experiential workshops, and I am a community educator with Visioning B.E.A.R. Circle Intertribal Coalition led by Grandmother Strong Oak.

Workshop facilitation is a pleasure for me. At the Friends Association for Higher Education annual conference, I presented with Paula Palmer and Gail Melix. Separately, I led a workshop that I called, “Steps Toward Decolonization.” At the recent sessions of New England Yearly Meeting, I led a small group engagement with the memoirs of Zitkala Å a (Lakota Sioux). In each instance, I have received positive participant feedback.