A series of racist questions in a high school English course sparked outrage among parents and students and highlighted persistent shortcomings in how Canada teaches the grim legacy of colonialism and its impact on Indigenous peoples.
Students taking a grade 10 correspondence course in the province of Nova Scotia were asked to list the benefits and disadvantages of being placed in one of the country’s notorious residential schools, where 150,000 Indigenous children were sent as part of a campaign of forced assimilation.
Controversy over the course comes as Canada reckons with the discovery of 215 unmarked graves at a residential school in the city of Kamloops, British Columbia.
