Random Rants...

Last night, I was discussing my new approach to teaching US History with a friend and I mentioned how I would love to teach US History in all its true glory and humor. For example, we teach young children that Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492. Yay!! Here's America!! Oh wait, there are some indians here but they are our friends and we all have a big meal together called Thanksgiving. There are soooo many things wrong with this picture! First of all, Columbus sailed in 1492 and the Pilgrims arrived in 1620. There are 128 years in there that we have skipped over.... maybe we should spend a little time figuring out what our forefathers were doing out there...

Howard Zinn paints a devastating picture in a A People's History of the United States, but you really don't even have to go as extreme to point out that Columbus mutilated indians to buy the cooperation of others. He demanded the natives to bring him gold and when they promised there was no gold, he enslaved them and sent them back on ships to Spain to be sold. Columbus was not a good guy. While sailing toward the New World that he didn't know existed, he promised his crew a reward for the first sighting of land. He claimed the prize himself saying he had sighted light BEFORE the other guy and he just hadn't said anything.... Ummmm.... HELLO. Don't even get me started on how he "discovered" America. The Native Americans were here and discounting them, other explorers had already been here. How else do you think Squanto walked out of the woods and spoke to our ancestors in a language they understood??? Columbus wasn't the first or second guy here; he just got credit. We would never teach it this way though. I do however start the year with the song "Who discovered it?" from the cd Hip Hop US History. To give you an idea, the main verse is "I just discovered America" to which the refrain is "You didn't discover nothing... we were already here". Great place to start a discussion concerning exploration.

Speaking of natives who were already here... Pocahantas is said to have saved John Smith's life by placing her head over his so her father wouldn't bash in Smith's brains. We know this based upon John Smith's own account. Disney made an entire movie based upon this. Little kids everywhere love it. Little girls wander around singing just around the riverbend... Did it happen? Maybe... Maybe not... Keep in mind we know what happened because John Smith told us what happened... As the book After the Fact points out, Smith also claims that prior to joining the Virginia expedition, he was a soldier of fortune who was taken prisoner by the Turks and would have been killed if he had not been saved by a beautiful young princess... He was able to escape and flee... Wow.. That sounds remarkably like what will happen to him in Jamestown... Maybe he was this dashing guy who had the ability to get young women to risk death to save him... Maybe he exaggerated a wee bit...

More random rants later.. Don't you wish this is how we could teach?