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.”


Watch: Emotional ‘Sharia Law Survivor’ Begs Schools to Keep Out Islamism, as Lib Teen Mocks Him Literally Behind His Back
Six prime ministers, nine lives: Downing Street’s ‘chief mouser’ Larry the cat outlasts another leader
NYT’s Gonna NYT: Paper Uses Father’s Day to Pretend Being Trans Can Make a Woman a ‘Father’
A timeline of Trump’s $14 million Reflecting Pool makeover
Cops could be forced into race-based guessing game after Supreme Court move, Thomas joins dissent
Judge rejects accused WHCA dinner shooter’s bid to disqualify Blanche and Pirro
Chicago’s deadly Juneteenth weekend leaves 7 dead as Trump shames Dem gov for inaction
Former Gambino associate turned New Jersey councilman accused of running loansharking ring while in office
Supreme Court reinstates conviction in 1979 Etan Patz murder
Judge Releases Surveillance Footage of Karmelo Anthony’s Murder of Austin Metcalf
NYPD Officer Jumps on Top of Vehicle and Shoots Suspect Who Hit Multiple Officers
Chicago resident living in shadows of Obama Presidential Center reveal chaos caused by years-long construction
Alan Greenspan dies at age 100
Attacks Against Christians Rise in Major European Country
District court judges weighing Trump policies face repeated slap downs by appeals courts

See also  PHOTOS: Best moments from Obama’s presidential center opening

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.”


Watch: Emotional ‘Sharia Law Survivor’ Begs Schools to Keep Out Islamism, as Lib Teen Mocks Him Literally Behind His Back
Six prime ministers, nine lives: Downing Street’s ‘chief mouser’ Larry the cat outlasts another leader
NYT’s Gonna NYT: Paper Uses Father’s Day to Pretend Being Trans Can Make a Woman a ‘Father’
A timeline of Trump’s $14 million Reflecting Pool makeover
Cops could be forced into race-based guessing game after Supreme Court move, Thomas joins dissent
Judge rejects accused WHCA dinner shooter’s bid to disqualify Blanche and Pirro
Chicago’s deadly Juneteenth weekend leaves 7 dead as Trump shames Dem gov for inaction
Former Gambino associate turned New Jersey councilman accused of running loansharking ring while in office
Supreme Court reinstates conviction in 1979 Etan Patz murder
Judge Releases Surveillance Footage of Karmelo Anthony’s Murder of Austin Metcalf
NYPD Officer Jumps on Top of Vehicle and Shoots Suspect Who Hit Multiple Officers
Chicago resident living in shadows of Obama Presidential Center reveal chaos caused by years-long construction
Alan Greenspan dies at age 100
Attacks Against Christians Rise in Major European Country
District court judges weighing Trump policies face repeated slap downs by appeals courts

See also  Illegal immigrants among 15 charged in $1.4 million Massachusetts benefits fraud crackdown

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