The Truth Behind Columbus Day & Thanksgiving

I am very excited that this topic was brought up because for the longest time I have been against Thanksgiving and how we teach students about these holidays. I understand that the truth might be too graphic but that has got to be better than lies and false information, right? When I was younger, just as "What not to teach about Native Americans" states, I learned the famous saying in "1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue." It was not until I was much older that I learned what actually is celebrated on these holidays. In my research I found a great idea for a Columbus Day lesson plan,This article advises to simply teach students the truth. I plan to teach my future students that America was already inhabited by the Native Americans but that other countries did not know it existed until Christopher Columbus. And just as we teach children about African American slaves, I will teach them how the Native Americans were enslaved. Teaching the truth does not mean I have to teach violence or graphic images to young kids.  I am not attached to the tradition at all and am actually completely against it. By forming my own lesson plan and incorporating students' heritage and their own knowledge about this events I will help them to understand the actual events that took place.

The topic of Thanksgiving is a very interesting one. For years I have been infuriated that it is even a holiday. In my opinion it is a celebration of the evil things we did to America's native people. In elementary school I was taught that Thanksgiving is this big,happy holiday in which we sat down at a table with the Native Americans who helped us to survive the harsh winter and were thankful for them and everything else. Most of the articles on Google only teach this version of Thanksgiving. If it were up to me I would use primary sources, images, arts and crafts etc. to paint a picture of what happened. This doesn't mean gruesome images of the horrors we did to Native Americans, but in a way a child could understand what actually happened. Incorporating children's heritage, what they already know about the subject, amongst other things will help me to teach them. However, I do not want them to completely dismiss the holiday because it still exists, so a fabricated version of the truth is necessary. Students should respect the holiday as being thankful for what they have and that is the main point I plan on stressing. I don't think the headdresses and pilgrim hats is discriminatory or racist, I think they are cute and fun. Students don't look as far into these things as we are. Although maybe a turkey with feathers saying what the child is thankful for or one that the turkey's feathers is an outline of the students'  hand might be a better project to do.