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.”


US rebuilding weapons stockpile could delay orders from allies
Unearthed interview exposes what Talarico thought about ‘tough-on-crime’ tactics
Haitian Church Members Attacked by Gang While Providing Shelter to Needy Neighbors
GOP faces brutal midterm headwinds as Republicans paint election as ‘competition with communism’
Key swing state voters to settle dueling Senate primary fights in crucial open-seat race
Texas education board approves controversial curriculum changes tying ‘radical Islam’ to 9/11 attacks
Climber dies in fatal fall on Colorado 14er south of Aspen
US forces sink narco-refueling station linked to Ecuadorian cartel in Pacific: SOUTHCOM
Trump Pre-empts Canada’s Retaliatory Tariffs by Telling Jet Maker Bombardier ‘No More Selling’ in US
‘You’re Fired’: Police Event Scraps Jelly Roll Performance in Response to Trump-Bashing on ‘Kimmel’
Watch: Stadium Erupts as Florida Brings Back Chant That Was Banned for Years Due to Imaginary ‘Racist’ History
Leftists Call for Murder of Liberal Financial YouTuber for Promoting Personal Responsibility to Overcome Debt
Jimmy John’s employee accused of opening fire on car, shooting 14-year-old girl in leg: police
Trump Admin Preparing Plan to Boost Nuclear Families by Paying Stay-at-Home Moms: Report
NTSB reveals if crew survived Amazon cargo jet disaster as it shares details about victims

See also  Gloria Steinem, outspoken feminist leader, dies at 92

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.”


US rebuilding weapons stockpile could delay orders from allies
Unearthed interview exposes what Talarico thought about ‘tough-on-crime’ tactics
Haitian Church Members Attacked by Gang While Providing Shelter to Needy Neighbors
GOP faces brutal midterm headwinds as Republicans paint election as ‘competition with communism’
Key swing state voters to settle dueling Senate primary fights in crucial open-seat race
Texas education board approves controversial curriculum changes tying ‘radical Islam’ to 9/11 attacks
Climber dies in fatal fall on Colorado 14er south of Aspen
US forces sink narco-refueling station linked to Ecuadorian cartel in Pacific: SOUTHCOM
Trump Pre-empts Canada’s Retaliatory Tariffs by Telling Jet Maker Bombardier ‘No More Selling’ in US
‘You’re Fired’: Police Event Scraps Jelly Roll Performance in Response to Trump-Bashing on ‘Kimmel’
Watch: Stadium Erupts as Florida Brings Back Chant That Was Banned for Years Due to Imaginary ‘Racist’ History
Leftists Call for Murder of Liberal Financial YouTuber for Promoting Personal Responsibility to Overcome Debt
Jimmy John’s employee accused of opening fire on car, shooting 14-year-old girl in leg: police
Trump Admin Preparing Plan to Boost Nuclear Families by Paying Stay-at-Home Moms: Report
NTSB reveals if crew survived Amazon cargo jet disaster as it shares details about victims

See also  Former president-turned-amateur artist George W. Bush debuting new paintings for 9/11 remembrance

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