Posted on 10/12/2009 8:05:15 AM PDT by ConservativeStatement
TAMPA, Fla. - 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, but 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’s stature in US classrooms has declined somewhat through the years, and many districts will not observe his namesake holiday today. 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 also of diseases carried by settlers that decimated native populations.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
Indoctrination.
Killjoys have attempted to ruin everything. Christmas, Thanksgiving, Columbus Day, you name it. Notice, however, in no jurisdiction is the NEA lobbying to make October 12 a school day.
By this logic, how could anyone “discover” a lost tribe or unknown civilization?
Columbus had courage, something that liberals do not like and do not understand.
“I talk about the situation where he didn’t even realize where he was,’’
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Ah, did he tell the kids that when that happen Columbus PRAYED and asked God what to do ???
Exhibit A as to why our children are completely unaware of what an American is. The NEA and the rest of these pukes will trash America at any chance. Not one of them would have the guts to get in any one of Columbus’s tiny ships and brave the Atlantic like he did. And if the NEA and these other morons think that maintaining discipline on three ships with dozens of people is easy, then they really are morons.
Get your kids out of the public screwells as fast as you can.
and the indiginous people didn’t have the wheel.
How would today’s kindergarten teachers know Christopher Columbus was “mean”????
How?
It's somehow never pointed out that if the Western Hemisphere had been more technologically advanced and "discovered" Europe or Asia, exactly the same thing would have happened. Eurasian diseases probably reduced the native population of the American by 90% or more by 1600, but there was absolutely no way to prevent this once contact was made.
Also, FWIW, all these diseases of which I'm aware originated in Asia or Africa, yet are routinely referred to as European diseases.
I have no objection to history being taught "warts and all," in fact that's preferrable. I do object to it being taught "warts only."
When I was in Kindergarten (1981-1982), we were taught what a great man Columbus was. Of course, about 75% of the kids in my class had vowels at the end of their name, so that was a factor.
bttt
Disputed due mainly to PC, but probable given the timeline.
So, the Europeans DELIBERATELY brought disease over with themselves?
How on earth would 15th century sailors know they carried diseases with them? Hell, they thought they were going to India!
This is all so much bull durham.
“The indigenous population was kind of waiting expectantly, almost with smiles on their faces,’’ Kracht said. “ ‘I wonder what this guy is bringing us?’ Well, he’s bringing us smallpox, for one thing, and none of us are going to live very long.’’
They are probably being taught that Columbus gave the natives death blankets and hacked them to death with a sabre.
sigh...
IOW make him look like a villian.
Columbus clearly discovered America in the sense that almost no maps or atlases or catalogs on the world island comprising Europe, Asia and Africa had any hint of the existence of land between Asia and Europe in 1492 but by 1510, almost all new maps and atlases reflect the knowledge of America.
“Viking Maps” and sagas, to the extent they actually existed are at best ephemera, not part of mankind’s base of knowledge. That information had almost no influence on the wider world’s perception, unlike Columbus.
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