Teachers emphasize the Indians' Side

Associated Press ^ | 11-21-2006 | Ana Beatriz Cholo

[Vinny]

LONG BEACH, Calif. - Teacher Bill Morgan walks into his third-grade class wearing a black Pilgrim hat made of construction paper and begins snatching up pencils, backpacks and glue sticks from his pupils. He tells them the items now belong to him because he "discovered" them. The reaction is exactly what Morgan expects: The kids get angry and want their things back.

Morgan is among elementary school teachers who have ditched the traditional Thanksgiving lesson, in which children dress up like Indians and Pilgrims and act out a romanticized version of their first meetings.

He has replaced it with a more realistic look at the complex relationship between Indians and white settlers.

Morgan said he still wants his pupils at Cleveland Elementary School in San Francisco to celebrate Thanksgiving. But "what I am trying to portray is a different point of view."

[annelizly]

and lets not forget the benefits he claims due to the american parents of his children....the best medical insurance known to man! Wonderful pensions and job security. unheard of vacation days. early retirement. Summers off. weekends off. nights off.

geez...if I was a teacher I think i'd be bowing down to AMERICA.

[Captainpaintball]

Cats in the Cradle.

[therut]

Is he going to tell how Native Americans scalped, skinned and burned people alive, dismembered them and put their body part up on spikes, misued and abused their women. How they did the same to other tribes. How they made slaves of other tribes. Will he tell them this story to. Or is he going to tell them that white people were all racist and the Indians were peaceful mother earth worshiping sophicated tribes who lived in peace and harmoney with each other and nature. We won they lost. As did my Great Great Choctaw ancestors. I feel no hate of my white ancestors. Should I??? I also do not romanticize my Choctaw ancestors.

[Archie Bunker on steroids]

Does he teach them that evey tribe of Indian that we took from, took from a previous Indian tribe, who took from one previous to them?

[bordergal]

Third grade??? Oh come on, presenting opposing viewpoints of a major holiday is appropriate in High School...but third grade?

Let the kids enjoy themselves, you elementary school killjoy!

[ccmay]

Does he teach them that evey tribe of Indian that we took from, took from a previous Indian tribe, who took from one previous to them?

Who might well have taken it from the (white) Kennewick Man.

-ccm

[Goldie Lurks]

"Morgan said he still wants his pupils at Cleveland Elementary School in *San Francisco* to celebrate Thanksgiving."

Angering Third Graders and building a dislike for another culture is not nuturing critical thinking.

Morgan, a teacher for more than 35 years, from the San Francisco area = A politically correct, tenured, moonbat.

[WhiteGuy]

The Puritans are a much-aligned group?

much aligned? Hah!

[gakrak]

Yes, but what do you expect in San Fran. The guy is a socialist. Amen.

[sonic109]

He's not even accurate in his historical outlook. Another friggin MORON teacher produced at a Marxist university. I bet he know zero about history ( except of course anti American rants)

[nmh]

The problem is kids will believe him. By default they're taught to look to teachers as authority figures and regurgitate his views on tests.

[Question_Assumptions]

Go loathe your revisionism someplace dark.

This has nothing to do with Halloween parties and modern thugs. Go loathe your racism someplace dark. My point was that European diseases killed off most of the American Indians that died after the Europeans arrived. That means that the land was a lotmore empty than it had been by the time the Europeans showed up, especially out West. That means that they didn't have to take the land from anyone. It was empty. It wasn't anyone's fault.

[Blogatron]

My point is that the "European Disease" theory can not be proven but has rather been assumed as fact by the hate-America crowd.

[Question_Assumptions]

There is plenty of evidence, from where there was contact, of American Indians catching European diseases, in particular Smallpox, after contact. Yes, I know that the anti-American and anti-European want to blame the deaths of millions of American Indians on European settlers but if they were primariliy killed by diseases, the Europeans are no more responsible for that (with the small exception, perhaps, of those few who purposely tried to transmit Smallpox to American Indians) than the people of China are responsible for the Black Death or deadly Flu epidemics. It wasn't like the bombed the American Indians with biological weapons.

[Politicalmom]

Go away, troll.