[RSCT] Curriculum Resources for Alternative Views on Columbus Day

[DiDi Grimm]

I have found Debbie Reese's blog really helpful in selecting books with
indigenous perspectives:

http://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/
http://www.oyate.org/aboutus.html

On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 10:25 AM, <BBPDX at aol.com> wrote:

> In a message dated 10/12/09 7:00:48 AM, katheriq at umflint.edu writes:
>
> Do you know of any children's literature that tells an honest story-
> possibly from the perspective of the indigenous peoples?
>
> Hi Katherine and all,
>
> In Rethinking Columbus, I review some of the better, more multicultural
> children's Columbus/Taino books that came out after 1992. All of these are
> problematic, but there are some that are more helpful than others. Jane
> Yolen's book, "Encounter," attempts to tell the Columbus-Taino story from
> the standpoint of a Taino boy. The most helpful thing about the book is
> simply that it makes a sincere effort to turn the story on its head and to
> watch the so-called discovery from the standpoint of the "discovered."
> "Encounter" has its own problems, as I discuss in the article ("Good
> Intentions Are Not Enough"), but it's a helpful effort. Another is Michael
> Dorris' "Morning Girl," a book that is set in a Taino community in the
> summer of 1492, and so takes Europeans off center stage. Francine Jacobs'
> "The Tainos" is the only children's book that I know of that attempts to
> explore Taino culture -- but again, with its own biases, as I discuss in
> Rethinking Columbus.
>
> The Associated Press just published a piece on how Columbus is being taught
> in schools these days:
> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091011/ap_on_re_us/us_teaching_columbus. The
> article suggests that in some schools, kids are learning a more complex
> version of Columbus: "In Texas, students start learning in the fifth grade
> about the 'Columbian Exchange' — which consisted not only of gold, crops and
> goods shipped back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean, but diseases carried
> by settlers that decimated native populations." I presume that this refers
> to the awful 2008 5th grade Houghton Mifflin Social Studies textbook, which
> has a section on the Columbian Exchange. Notice how all the bad consequences
> of Spanish conquest are the fault of diseases "carried by settlers," not
> colonialism itself. This textbook focuses on the "exchange" between Tainos
> and Europeans -- i.e., "they" got horses and "we" got corn. In trying to
> avoid the "Columbus discovers America" myth, it embraces another myth: that
> what matters is all the stuff that got shared as a result of Columbus's
> voyage. I'm out of town, and don't have my copy in front of me, so can't
> give an exact quote, but the textbook even talks about how, as a result of
> this "exchange," we can now enjoy spicy food. The book fails to discuss the
> nature of Spanish colonialism in the Americas, the impact of these policies
> on Native peoples or the beginning of the African slave trade. It's a
> wretched book and ought to be critiqued by social justice teachers and
> community members, as the Social Studies Task Force in Milwaukee has done.
>
> I'd encourage other teachers to post to the critical teaching listserv if
> you have ideas/adaptations for alternative ways to teach Columbus and the
> Tainos. And I'd encourage folks to revisit Rethinking Columbus:
> http://www.rethinkingschools.org/publication/columbus.
>
> Best,
>
> Bill Bigelow
> Rethinking Schools
> www.rethinkingschools.org
>
>
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-- 
I have nothing to say,
I am saying it,
and that is poetry.
 --John Cage
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