News Opinons Politics

Teachers Strive to Ensure Students ‘Unlearn’ Thanksgiving ‘Myth’

Teachers across America are striving to have their students “unlearn” what progressive activists say is nothing more than a “feel-good” Thanksgiving “myth.”

“Thanksgiving became a national holiday during the administration of President Abraham Lincoln, and the myth of familial relations between colonial settlers and Native Americans has persisted in American culture ever since,” says Education Week:

The education media outlet interviewed Jacob Tsotigh, tribal education specialist for the National Indian Education Association, who said, “There’s less and less” of K-12 teachers having students participate in the narrative of the early American settlers sharing a meal with Native Americans.


Tsotigh said more Americans are being “made aware of that version being a myth, and our realization that there is a really different perspective that needs to be considered.”


Are Conservatives Actually Represented in the Senate? John Cornyn’s X Page Should Have You Questioning Everything
Buckingham Palace Issues ‘Highly Unusual’ Statement in Response to New Allegations from Princess Diana’s Family
Rand Paul clashes with fellow Republican over AI ‘kill switch’ as Senate grapples with ‘Terminator’ fears
Minnesota’s anti-ICE aid fund becomes latest casualty of state’s embarrassing fraud problem
Air Force Secretary Confirms U.S. Now Has Weapons Deployed in Space
22 Blue States Try to Block Trump Rule That Cracks Down on Immigrants Receiving Welfare in Final Hours Before It Takes Effect
Influential conservative group says all hope is not lost for Republicans during midterms — and here’s why
Powerful teachers’ unions share striking link with states struggling to teach kids to read
Trump’s $5K checks could join stack of past unfulfilled promises, former Congress budget chief warns
Idaho prosecutors accuse Bryan Kohberger of ‘fishing’ to find better arguments for bid to withdraw guilty plea
Los Angeles NBC helicopter seen plummeting toward ground in dashcam video
Kamala Harris to Team Up with Radical Senate Candidate Abdul El-Sayed in Apparent Sign of Intent
Hyperbolic ‘Hottest Summer Ever’ Headlines Aren’t Meteorological Science
Trump seen reading plans for Kennedy Center ‘DEMOLITION’ during ride on Air Force One
Brandon Johnson’s latest viral moment sends Chicago critics into a frenzy: ‘What the actual F?’

See also  Mamdani greets America’s Mayor Rudy Giuliani despite calls to skip 9/11 memorial

He added that more public school teachers are reaching out to tribal communities to “connect to authentic teaching sources.”

Education Week continued:

To help students appreciate colonial oppression of Natives and the violence that ensued from it, Tsotigh recommends reframing the holiday as an opportunity to honor representatives of Native communities who greeted European visitors with open arms.

“They didn’t perceive them as invaders at the time because their numbers were so small,” Tsotigh said. “They felt from the mindset of Native people that we share with those less fortunate. That was part of how that myth evolved.”

For “related video,” Education Week linked to a 2018 PBS NewsHour report titled “Teaching the Real Lessons of Thanksgiving.”

“Thanksgiving is often seen as a quintessential feel-good holiday, but many argue the way it’s taught in schools perpetuates myths as well as being disrespectful to Native Americans,” PBS host Judy Woodruff states, adding these individuals claim the traditional Thanksgiving story “leaves out the context of relations between them and the early immigrants, how the settlers brought diseases, for example, that decimated native tribes or information about the massacres of natives that followed.”


Are Conservatives Actually Represented in the Senate? John Cornyn’s X Page Should Have You Questioning Everything
Buckingham Palace Issues ‘Highly Unusual’ Statement in Response to New Allegations from Princess Diana’s Family
Rand Paul clashes with fellow Republican over AI ‘kill switch’ as Senate grapples with ‘Terminator’ fears
Minnesota’s anti-ICE aid fund becomes latest casualty of state’s embarrassing fraud problem
Air Force Secretary Confirms U.S. Now Has Weapons Deployed in Space
22 Blue States Try to Block Trump Rule That Cracks Down on Immigrants Receiving Welfare in Final Hours Before It Takes Effect
Influential conservative group says all hope is not lost for Republicans during midterms — and here’s why
Powerful teachers’ unions share striking link with states struggling to teach kids to read
Trump’s $5K checks could join stack of past unfulfilled promises, former Congress budget chief warns
Idaho prosecutors accuse Bryan Kohberger of ‘fishing’ to find better arguments for bid to withdraw guilty plea
Los Angeles NBC helicopter seen plummeting toward ground in dashcam video
Kamala Harris to Team Up with Radical Senate Candidate Abdul El-Sayed in Apparent Sign of Intent
Hyperbolic ‘Hottest Summer Ever’ Headlines Aren’t Meteorological Science
Trump seen reading plans for Kennedy Center ‘DEMOLITION’ during ride on Air Force One
Brandon Johnson’s latest viral moment sends Chicago critics into a frenzy: ‘What the actual F?’

See also  Sept. 11 in photos: Washington Examiner photographer Graeme Jennings shares his images from the aftermath of 9/11

In keeping with the “unlearning” process, Education Week offers its project titled Citizen Z: Teaching Civics in a Divided Nation, which, it says, “has been exploring the evolving cultural understanding of Thanksgiving through the lens of the K-12 classroom.”

Story cited here.

Share this article:
Share on Facebook
Facebook
Tweet about this on Twitter
Twitter