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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]NP. I am from Massachusetts and grew up learning a ton about Pilgrims and other early colonials. I mean, we went to Pilgrim Village, Plymouth Rock, reenacted Thanksgiving (down to the outfits), and literally spent the entire 8th grade learning about the history of the small town where we lived.

In all that time, I think Native Americans came up only twice: Thanksgiving story and as the bad guys in King Phillip's War.

This is shameful in my opinion. [b]History should not only be told from the perspective of the "winners" or [/b]privileged. We can all do better to educate ourselves and the next generation about the complexity of history. Of course that does not mean we have to introduce all of history's gory details at once to young kids. But if we learn more ourselves we can do a better job at ensuring that they don't end up with as narrow a view as we did.

Thanks to PP who shared the Slate article. I really liked this quote at the end:
What I don't think many people recognize, as we ask our grade school children to participate in Thanksgiving pageants and to celebrate this mythical Native American consent to colonialism — what we're asking them to do is identify with English colonists as "we" and to think of the Native historical actors as "them.”

My guess is what OP is getting at is avoiding this by teaching her kids about the holiday in a way that does not perpetuate this dichotomy and by humanizing the characature of Native Americans in the typical Thanksgiving story.[/quote]

Lol![/quote]

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