Halloween assignment featuring 'Indian' man sparks controversy at Montreal school
Teacher at École Notre-Dame-De-Grâce removed image after being contacted by parents
An NDG dad is raising questions about an elementary school assignment that made reference to an "Indian" man.
Eric Robillard says each week his daughter, who attends École Notre-Dame-De-Grâce, is given a vocabulary sheet with the goal of matching a word with an image.
For Halloween, the sheet featured a fairy, a ghost and a mermaid — along with a man in a native headdress.
"We didn't think it was a costume," Robillard told CBC Montreal's Daybreak on Tuesday.
"We thought it was cultural appropriation. It's not something that we wanted our daughter to learn. And we didn't want our daughter to learn the word Indian."
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Robillard said his wife raised the issue with their daughter's teacher, and she was apologetic, explaining that the material was provided by the school board. The teacher removed the image when she handed out the assignment again.
He contacted the school board, the Commission scolaire de Montréal, on Tuesday but has yet to get a response.
Robillard also posted the homework sheet on an NDG parents' Facebook group, where it has been widely shared and generated a heated debate.
He said it started out respectfully but deteriorated into personal attacks and "Indian jokes."
CSDM didn't immediately return a request to comment from CBC.