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.”


Father of 10-year-old boy breaks silence after viral beach rescue: ‘No way I could ever repay him’
Assisted living sent resident to doctor’s appointment after giving him 18 shots, 5 am beer: officials
Trump immigration agenda faces setback as Obama-appointed judge issues fresh TPS stay
Israeli president says Palestinian peace ‘requires’ acceptance of Israel in warning against Mamdani
New Christian Persecution Report Shows Most Dangerous Countries on Earth for Believing in Jesus
Why Gen Z Is Breaking This Longtime Workplace Taboo
Reporter’s Notebook: Why Fauci’s 111 Fifth Amendment pleas could end up before the courts
Trump Says AI Data Centers Pledge Will Make Power Bills ‘Actually Come Down’
Parents Who Starved Their 75-Day-Old Baby to Death Will Get No Jail Time After Guilty Plea – Guess Who the Judge Is
Fauci’s Fifth fuels vow to haul him into court ‘every day’ despite Biden pardon
‘Like Graham Platner But Worse’: GOP Group Vows $42M Campaign Against Last-Minute Replacement Democrat
Study Confirms Who Is Behind Killings of Christians in Nigeria
Bipartisan pair of senators urge Rubio to release aid to African women, children at risk of Ebola
Florida mail carrier accused of snatching pets on route, trapping 100-plus cats and dogs in ‘hoarding’ house
Savannah Guthrie makes desperate plea six months after mom Nancy went missing: ‘Someone knows something’

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.”


Father of 10-year-old boy breaks silence after viral beach rescue: ‘No way I could ever repay him’
Assisted living sent resident to doctor’s appointment after giving him 18 shots, 5 am beer: officials
Trump immigration agenda faces setback as Obama-appointed judge issues fresh TPS stay
Israeli president says Palestinian peace ‘requires’ acceptance of Israel in warning against Mamdani
New Christian Persecution Report Shows Most Dangerous Countries on Earth for Believing in Jesus
Why Gen Z Is Breaking This Longtime Workplace Taboo
Reporter’s Notebook: Why Fauci’s 111 Fifth Amendment pleas could end up before the courts
Trump Says AI Data Centers Pledge Will Make Power Bills ‘Actually Come Down’
Parents Who Starved Their 75-Day-Old Baby to Death Will Get No Jail Time After Guilty Plea – Guess Who the Judge Is
Fauci’s Fifth fuels vow to haul him into court ‘every day’ despite Biden pardon
‘Like Graham Platner But Worse’: GOP Group Vows $42M Campaign Against Last-Minute Replacement Democrat
Study Confirms Who Is Behind Killings of Christians in Nigeria
Bipartisan pair of senators urge Rubio to release aid to African women, children at risk of Ebola
Florida mail carrier accused of snatching pets on route, trapping 100-plus cats and dogs in ‘hoarding’ house
Savannah Guthrie makes desperate plea six months after mom Nancy went missing: ‘Someone knows something’

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