Posted on 10/11/2009 8:18:44 AM PDT by reaganaut1
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -- Jeffrey Kolowith's kindergarten students read a poem about Christopher Columbus, take a journey to the New World on three paper ships and place the explorer's picture on a timeline through history.
Kolowith's students learn about the explorer's significance -- though they also come away with a more nuanced picture of Columbus than the noble discoverer often portrayed in pop culture and legend.
''I talk about the situation where he didn't even realize where he was,'' Kolowith said. ''And we talked about how he was very, very mean, very bossy.''
Columbus' stature in U.S. classrooms has declined somewhat through the years, and many districts will not observe his namesake holiday on Monday. Although lessons vary, many teachers are trying to present a more balanced perspective of what happened after Columbus reached the Caribbean and the suffering of indigenous populations.
''The whole terminology has changed,'' said James Kracht, executive associate dean for academic affairs in the Texas A&M College of Education and Human Development. ''You don't hear people using the world 'discovery' anymore like they used to. 'Columbus discovers America.' Because how could he discover America if there were already people living here?''
In Texas, students start learning in the fifth grade about the ''Columbian Exchange'' -- which consisted not only of gold, crops and goods shipped back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean, but diseases carried by settlers that decimated native populations.
In McDonald, Pa., 30 miles southwest of Pittsburgh, fourth-grade students at Fort Cherry Elementary put Columbus on trial this year -- charging him with misrepresenting the Spanish crown and thievery. They found him guilty and sentenced him to life in prison.
''In their own verbiage, he was a bad guy,'' teacher Laurie Crawford said.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Good for him!
Pink Zebra Press, LLC
Incorporated by Jeffrey G Kolowith, Pink Zebra Press, LLC is located at PO Box 735 Lakeland, FL 33802. Pink Zebra Press, LLC was incorporated on Tuesday, March 20, 2007 in the State of FL and is currently active. J Tom Watson represents Pink Zebra Press, LLC as their registered agent.
Same Guy? Pink Zebra?
see my post #62
That’s classic. This world is spinning out of control! We need to rein it in.
“Kids Study the Dark Side of Columbus” - “The whole terminology has changed” because the purpose of history is not actually to teach history—silly you! The point of this lesson is to indoctrinate little kids into the dogma of the left. This is their first taste of political correctness, and it won’t be the last.”
A good DrSanity post that should be read by all, here. http://drsanity.blogspot.com/
BUMP!
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To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. |
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· Discover · Nat Geographic · Texas AM Anthro News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · Google · · The Archaeology Channel · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists · |
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Another reason to homeschool ping.
I just covered Columbus and the new world with my 3rd grader. Guess I need to reteach the mean and bossy part.
Didn’t you know that MLK was just a shill for Whitey, an Uncle Tom? The Real Black American heroes were men like Bobby Seale and Malcolm X. /sarc
Although it was Indigenous Piffle Day, our local library was open. I went over there and inspected the shelves where they put the timely and seasonal stuff. They are diligent about having something relevant there for every possible holiday or season.
They have Kwanzaa materials, and the white population of the town is about 99%.
So. Did I see anything about Columbus, or Western Civ, or the great age of exploration?
Of course not.
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Interesting...that was one of the subjects we discussed in the literature class I teach at our homeschool co-op - the danger of judging earlier people and societies by our modern standards.
I bet he/she didn’t mention Martin Luther King’s um, “character defects” !!!!!
I refuse to sign up for the NYT, so I can’t read the rest of the article. But, imagine any other group criticized for the diseases they brought with them.
Recently, a doctor was trying to convince me to vaccinate my children more, and she told me that more diseases are becoming prevalent in the U.S. again because they are being carried here by immigrants. I’ll bet these teachers in the excerpt above would never mention that in their classes, though. If they did, they sure wouldn’t advocate stopping or slowing the immigration here - not even the illegal immigration.
LOL! Columbus discovering America is insulting to the native people of America? He didn’t discover it for them. He discovered it for Europe which had no prior knowledge of it’s existence. If a native American had sailed across the sea and discovered Spain, I don’t think the Spanish would mind that he was given credit for it. It was a great accomplishment in those days.
“Columbus’ voyage west was to get around the Islamic countries blocking the way to Chinese goods.”
And that dear FRiend is exactly why the liberals hate Christopher Columbus. He didn’t suck up to the peace loving Muslims.
Seeing the title, all I could think was “What did he do? Come in and kick a kindergardner?”
Right now, I'm preparing a lesson on the earliest people here in the Americas. I have children's books I picked up cheaply here and there through the years - mainstream books written and used by schoolteachers and offered through companies like Scholastic. I was just going through one of them on "American Indians" published by Barron's. Yes, it uses the term "American Indian", but here are some exact quotes from it (remember, this is a book written for young children):
"...white settlers wanted the... land, so they took it. In the end, they decided that extermination was the best policy.
[A]lthough many American Indians scalped their victims, there were very few proven examples where Indians had purposely tortured their defeated enemies."
"Custer's Last Stand has gone down in history as the last battle of a hero against overwhelming odds. In fact, Custer was a fool who led his 200 men into a trap."
Originally, only the Mohawk Indians... had taken scalps. As white settlers began to pay money for enemy Indian scalps..., the practice spread to many tribes."
Get the picture? When Europeans waged war, they were either evil or foolish. When American Indians waged war, they were either great warriors, innocent victims, or just misunderstood.
But, in reality, history is far more complicated than that. Those statements above are designed to give young children a narrow viewpoint, without really being able to understand fully or think.
So, what I'm doing is having my children create history timelines and scrapbooks, focusing on dates and facts. We can fill in the blanks later when they're old enough to understand. Also, many homeschoolers here have a list of history books recommended as good books on this thread.
“many teachers are trying to present a more balanced perspective of what happened after Columbus reached the Caribbean and the suffering of indigenous populations.”
People need heroes and heroes are human. They not perfect. A nation needs heroes even more - they create a sense of national and cultural identity. What is being done to Columbus by the ideological leftist American haters is in line with the attacks on Washington, Jefferson, etc.
Children don’t need to be taught all the blemishes and problems associated with American heroes. They don’t have the personal or historical persepctive to judge them in context, which is PRECISELY why the American hating traitors in the Edcuational Establishment do it. Brainwash them at an early age before they mature enough to realize perspectives.
On the OTHER hand, Columbus Day is not and should not be an Italian-American Day. Its a day about a significant event and an heroic figure, which contributed to the foudning of America.
I really find ethnic-American events repugnant, REGARDLESS of the nationality involved. Where your ancestors came from is never as important as what you ARE and that should be first and foremost an American.
I don’;t say this as an attack on Americans of Italian ancestry. I feel exactly the same about idiotic holidays like “Spanish-American” Day or St. Patrick’s Day.
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