Every year on --10-14, 34 of the 50 United States celebrate Columbus Day; the day on which Christopher Columbus allegedly discovered America. I say "allegedly," because for Columbus to have discovered America, he would have to have been the first person to go there, but he was not.
A friend of mine was kind enough to share a screenshot on Facebook of the following text:
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"For years, I opened my 11th-grade U.S. history classes by asking students, "What's the name of that guy they say discovered America?" A few students might object to the word "discover," but they all knew the fellow I was talking about. "Christopher Columbus!" several called out in unison."Right. So who did he find when he came here?" I asked. Usually, a few students would say, "Indians," but I asked them to be specific: "Which nationality? What are their names?"
Silence.
In more than 30 years of teaching U.S. history and guest-teaching in others' classes, I've never had a single student say, "Taínos." So I ask them to think about that fact. "How do we explain that? We all know the name of the man who came here from Europe, but none of us knows the name of the people who were here first -- and there were hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of them. Why haven't you heard of them?"
This ignorance is an artifact of historical silencing -- rendering invisible the lives and stories of entire peoples."
Source: Bestoffates
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I could not find the book the above quote refers to, on GoodReads. I did find a book titled Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years: Resources for Teaching about the Impact of the Arrival of Columbus in the Americas.
Here's a link to that book on GoodReads.
When I searched for "Bestoffates," I found this Facebook page and the domain name bestoffates.com. I say I found the domain name because there's no website to be found there. The fact that this domain name is registered with GoDaddy tells me that it may have been used and will still be used, but still, there's nothing there.
This makes me wonder...
I'd like to end this blog post with a quote by Alexandra K. Trenfor.
The best teachers are those who show you where to look, but don't tell you what to see.
Btw, if you don't know who Alexandra K. Trenfor is...you're not alone.
As always, I hope you enjoyed reading this blog post. If you have any questions or comments, then please let me know in the form down below.
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