Thursday, September 15, 2011
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GO WILDCATS!
GO WILDCATS!
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Welcome to Mrs. Ashley's blog for Civics and Economics.
Check it frequently for updates and assignments!
You may leave comments/questions for me or your classmates.
See you all soon,
Mrs. Ashley
Check it frequently for updates and assignments!
You may leave comments/questions for me or your classmates.
See you all soon,
Mrs. Ashley
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Attention Mrs. Ashley's Civics students:
If you need an assignment, check out my website found @ http://teacherpages.nhcs.net
If you have a question, e-mail me @ leah.ashley@nhcs.net
If you need an assignment, check out my website found @ http://teacherpages.nhcs.net
If you have a question, e-mail me @ leah.ashley@nhcs.net
What we are taught in school about Thanksgiving seems to skip over alot about what actually happened. Also it doesn't explain the true meaning of Thanksgiving enough. Most of the stuff we learn in school is most likely myths or exagerations that have been passed down over generations.
ReplyDeleteI think history seems to skip over and miss some of the information on the topic of Thanksgiving because it is a story meant for kids. Especially since you start learning about this wonderful Holiday at such a young age I think that over time people have “dumbed it down” so much that people forget the real story. The fact that history books have gotten the meaning of Thanksgiving wrong is somewhat disturbing because I always thought that history books were never wrong.
ReplyDeleteI think it's amazing how much of the content written in our history textbooks is false information. I think all history books should be revised to provide accurate information. After all, we aren't in English, we shouldn't be reading fictional stories.
ReplyDeleteHistory texts are probably publishing false information because they don't want to be the ones to provide information that to some, would be found embarrassing and degrading. For example, the fact that the Native Americans were much more skilled and intelligent when it comes to surviving and the fact that the newcomers didn't even know it was smart to bathe and carried many diseases. Some people would find this information embarrassing if it was about their own people, however they are happy to provide the crude facts about the flaws of other civilizations besides their own. I think that the textbooks are unfairly biased and should contain global perspectives, not just a one-sided story. Hopefully this issue will be addressed in the nearby future.
By Patrick:
ReplyDeleteAs the saying famously goes, the victor writes history. In our case the European is the victor, and sadly the privileges the victor has always enjoyed have been almost gleefully misused. Crucial elements in the history of Thanksgiving have been omitted time and time again.
This article has also inspired me to inquire as to how Native Americans feel about Thanksgiving. Is there lingering regret for unsaid words, actions undone and laws unpassed? Is there bitterness or just a slow burning resentment?
This reading left me with a kind of weird feeling. While i had learned most of this before, I did go the majority of my life not knowing a lot of the details. It can probably be guessed, but these details were not the good ones. I had been taught throughout elementary and probably part of middle school that Thanksgiving was nothing more than the pilgrims arriving on the Mayflower and having a big happy feast with the Indians... with turkey.
ReplyDeleteI think more people need to get the real information out more often, like in Lies My Teacher Told Me. Thanksgiving is a day, where we give thanks, and it should be a happy occasion. At the same time, I don't people should spread the wrong information. The things that happened in that time were awful, and completely unfair for the Native Americans. If anything I almost feel it should be a time where we give thanks for the fact we did not have to live through the hardships they did, and also that (while they may have done tragic things) the Europeans did come over, and they set up the foundations of the country we have today. I feel like the Native Americans did receive the ill side of this deal, and would completely understand if those in tribes affected by the pilgrims may still have bitter feelings towards the whole holiday.
Part two:
ReplyDeleteI think the Native Americans probably wouldn't be to happy that we are celebrating this day. The information that this book gives out should be taught to everybody. Some kids are in skits in school with native Americans and Indians having such a good time and its not really fair to just look last what happened, or what didn't happen. This is interesting and I feel like this is something that would appear in the history channel or something big. I would like to see a skit on how everything really played out.
What we have been taught in elementary school and believed all of our lives is rather silly. I have learned and thought that the pilgrims were the first legitimate group of people to come and settle here. Well guess what?! False. Everything I made an effort to learn just went down the drain. It’s pathetic the American people don’t know their own country’s start.
ReplyDeleteI think the reason we find this classic myth being taught in history classes (note: myth!) rather than the truth is because it is so much easier to teach. I mean really, kindergarteners can grasp the subject. I suppose that there is a lot less (practically no) background information about the myth. Yet, there is quite a large amount of information to be taught with the truth, but isn’t there always? I think that every American deserves the chance to learn of our real humble beginnings.
matt buchanan:
ReplyDeletefrom reading this article i have learned a lot about thanksgiving and America. i am very surprised that we have not been given the truth about thanksgiving. i agree with this article when it said that America always tries to make itself look good. by us hiding the truth about thanksgiving, trying to make our selves look better than others is not right in my opinion.
this is not at all what i have learned in school about thanksgiving. i am baffled by how textbooks give false information on history. no one is perfect and America needs to stop acting like we are cause we arnt. i think everyone should know about this article because it would change a lot about how we celebrate thanksgiving today.
After I finished reading this article, I was very surprised how much the textbooks are wrong about Thanksgiving. I think when someone publishes a textbook; they should have the actual right information in it. It kind of surprises me how much is wrong with it.
ReplyDeleteI agree when they saw America is just trying to make them look good, because if they weren’t, they would’ve told us the actual truth about it. I never knew that Pilgrims never actually started the first Thanksgiving. This whole article shocked me a lot about the actual truth about Thanksgiving.
Most of the information I read in this article I already knew for the most part. I knew that the “pilgrims”, or whatever you want to call them, spread a lot of disease throughout most of the Native American tribes near their civilizations. Also I knew that mostly all of the preconceived notions about the “feast” that the Colonists and Native Americans had were untrue. This article did prove to be very interesting though, and I did learn a few things.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, I thought it was very interesting and eye opening how they compared the spreading of disease here to the rampant Black Plague in England. It was very interesting to see how morality and god played such a big part in how we evolved as people here. While we thought God was on our side for “driving the Indians away”, the Native Americans were frenzied like the Europeans were during the Black Plague and some turned to Alcohol, converted to Christianity, or killed themselves. I learned that in the beginning the Europeans relationship with the Native Americans was actually rather pleasant , and the Native Americans enjoyed having the Europeans around.
While reading this article I was in shock. I knew that history books didn’t exactly portray Thanksgiving factually but I didn’t realize how far it was from the truth either. Thanksgiving has always been seen as two different cultures coming together. When in reality, the pilgrims made life extremely hard for the natives. The pilgrims brought over many diseases that were responsible for killing many Native American tribes.
ReplyDeleteHistory books are usually pretty accurate but they definitely censored most of their information on Thanksgiving. I think the authors don’t want young children to perceive Americans in a bad way. So instead, they reported that everyone sat down at a big table and we ate turkey and talked amongst each other. I think we know that the way we treated the Native Americans was morally wrong but we don’t want our youth to realize that we haven’t always been the “good guys.”
Before reading this I had no idea that textbooks have been telling us wrong information about Thanksgiving.I never thought that even thing I had learned previously was exactly true, but in the article I learned some things about Thanksgiving I have never learned before. When I thought about Thanksgiving I thought about the huge feast and the peace between the two cultures, Not that there was all these diseases going around.
ReplyDeleteIn the article it says the fails to mention the true history of Thanksgiving because it's embarrassing. It also says that America does this so it can look good. I think that when your young they should just not teach Thanksgiving to you rather then trying to explain something to them that they wont understand. Because telling them one thing while then there young and then later telling them a complete different view of Thanksgiving, which happens to be the accurate one when there older just confuses everything.
I feel like people who make the texts books tend to sugar coat things like Disney does. They inform you on stuff that didn't happen anything like they tell you. Our books are not accurate and we should be learning about the truth and not what the books try and teach us.
ReplyDeleteI feel like we are missing out on all this information that could be important to us. I dont think it is fair for teachers to have to follow what they say and I think teachers should teach the truth. It is our history and not a story book, i want to learn about what happened not half made up history were forced to study and learn.
I am sad to now know that growing up, our teachers taught us such a happy, untrue story of the first thanksgiving. When in reality, most of it was the very opposite. I feel like they fill young childrens heads with these lies to protect them from the graphic truth about sicknesses and deaths. They want them to associate thanksgiving with happiness, so they create this nice little happy story. After all, thanksgiving is about being thankful.
ReplyDeleteBecause they have lied, does not mean I agree with it. I think it is ok to stretch the truth to an extent, altering the content of history in order to fit the learning style for the audience. However, I do not believe they should completely lie. When they lie, kids, such as myself, then get confused about what to now associate with thanksgiving. What is the most truthful story of the first thanksgiving?
As we get older we actually start learning the truth about Thanksgiving. We were taught that the Pilgrims were the first ones to arrive, but it was the native Indians. The Pilgrims made it a living nightmare for the natives when they arrived. In the last line of this paper it quotes” truth should be held sacred, at whatever cost." I think it means that the truth about Thanksgiving should be taught no matter what, not what wants to be taught to us.
ReplyDeleteThis is another test!
ReplyDelete