Growing up, we've repeated the famous line "In fourteen hundred and ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue." This is probably because there's no way to form a rhyme from "In fourteen hundred and ninety-two, Columbus slaughtered Native Americans." Why, for years, have we been celebrating Columbus' arrival to America without really knowing how he did ot or who suffered in the midst of all his glory? One of the most importance things I have learned from a college class here at Salem State is to consider all sides of a story. Before getting into all the facts about Christopher Columbus and the Native Americans, I want to present Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story. In 2009, Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Adichie spoke for TED on “The Danger of The Single Story.” In her speech, she reveals that only hearing one story about a people or a nation leads to ignorance, and she explains the importance of hearing multiple stories. She says, "Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person. The Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti writes that if you want to dispossess a people, the simplest way to do it is to tell their story, and to start with, "secondly." Start the story with the arrows of the Native Americans, and not with the arrival of the British, and you have and entirely different story. Start the story with the failure of the African state, and not with the colonial creation of the African state, and you have an entirely different story."
The only way for students to fully understand the history behind Columbus Day is to teach them all sides of the story. This means that teachers need to re-educate themselves on this topic, as said by Bob Peterson is his article, "Columbus and Native Issue in the Elementary Classroom". Peterson includes several exercises to get students thinking about Native American and the stereotypes associated with them and the Columbus Day holiday. He begins his teaching of this holiday by asking the students to write down what they know about Native Americans. This is so the class can get all the stereotypes out in the open and then discuss the problems with assuming that Native Americans live and dress a certain way. He also suggests using analogies that relate to the student's lives. For example, he writes, "Give examples such as a coach having a stereotype about girls: that they can't play baseball well" (36). These seem like very successful activities, and I would use them to teach my own students.
In another article, titled "We Have No Reason to Celebrate An Invasion," Suzan Shown Harjo, a director of Morning Star, an indigenous peoples' rights organization, is interviewed on the the topic of Columbus Day. In this article, her feelings are similar to Bob Peterson. She writes, "As Native American peoples in this red quarter of Mother Earth, we have no reason to celebrate an invasion that caused the demise of so many of our people and is still causing destruction today" (12). However, she understands that there are two sides to the story of Christopher Columbus. When she is asked "What should be the goal and perspective of teachers when telling their elementary and high schools students about Columbus?", she replies, "Explaining the unpleasant truths about Columbus does not take away from the fact he was able to lurch over to these shores in three little boats. In fact, it gives the story of Columbus more dimension. It also makes it easier for kids in school to accept not only Columbus but other things" (13). Her views on this topic are ones that I fully agree with. She accepts Christopher Columbus' were in no way heroic when it came to invading and murdering the Native American people, but she also accepts that Columbus' journey was impressive and worth noting. As a teacher, I would teach the story of Columbus just as Harjo explains it. Children need to know the truth behind every story, and that means taking the good with the bad.
No comments:
Post a Comment