What were the positives of Indian residential schools?

I don't think you will find many people who will deliver up positives of the residential school system. The abuses and destruction of Native culture are well documented. With the last of the residential schools closing in the 1970's, Native communities and Canada in general are still dealing with the problems caused by them.

The CBC did a documentary titled A Lost Heritage: Canada's Residential Schools. http://archives.cbc.ca/society/education/topics/692/ The link contains video clips and data on the destruction of Native heritage through the forced assimilation program.

The residential schools were plagued with sexual and physical abuse. Children were forbidden to speak their own languages, forced conversion to a religion, ripped away from their communities for 10 months of the year. The separation succeeded in making the children strangers in their own communities and they became alienated from both their own culture and white Canadian society. Generations of children became rootless and purposeless. Not much positive can be derived from this.