Columbus Day

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/columbus_day

 

One of his best posts to date, I hope it gets the views it deserves.

also

:')

 

Bravo! I will treasure this link until the day I die.

 

Yeah knew the elementary school version was a bit off, didn't know about the maiming though :X

Less depressing:

http://www.sheldoncomics.com/archive/081228.html

 

I found the information I was given about Columbus to be questionable at best in the first grade. One student had it right and asked if Columbus owned slaves. He was sent to the Principals office and then to detention for asking that...

I asked what his middle name was, and despite trying, they could not find an answer. That confirmed that they knew less than they wanted us to think, at least in my mind.

*Edit* Typos. Damned typos...

 

The article is mostly correct, but it does leave out a few details. Bartolome de las Casas was not just a slave owner, he was a slaver -- he would go on expeditions to capture slaves, a practice that was criticised by many Spanish missionaries. So if you want to be technical, not only was he not the first abolitionist, but before he had a change of heart, he was a perpetrator of some of the mentioned atrocities. But I can forgive the author for overlooking that in his zeal to turn the guy into a hero (in other words, we probably don't want to try to turn anyone involved into a hero, because almost everyone's hands were dirty to a varying extent).

Also, it doesn't mention that Columbus was arrested and sent back to Spain to be imprisoned for his treatment of the natives, which at least puts Spain in a slightly better light than they are usually portrayed.

 

mhm, do you live in the US of A, per chance?

 

Yes. In Texas. The deep Southern Capital of ignorance, in my never humble opinion.

No offense to other Texans, nor to other Southern Americans. I base my opinion on my experiences in elementary school alone, and it may be a very incomplete picture. Also, I never attended school beyond the sixth grade, so I have no opinions of how bad those grades are. (Yes, I am largely self-taught.)

 

I'll try not to make this political, but whenever you name names, I know I could be accused of that. But lets call a spade a spade.

The Texas board of Education has been notorious for several years now for their school textbook selections. Essentially, Governor Rick Perry (and probably prior Governors as well, since this is not a new problem) selected many Creationists, and Creationist activists to the board of education. Hence, any text book that does not include Creationism is rejected. Furthermore, history books are often rejected for including facts that do not show the U.S. as a gleaming symbol of all things good and pure and Christian. This is not Perry's fault, since it predates him as governor. And not every Texan agrees with the practice. But when the Board of Education is appointed by someone with specific beliefs, it makes it hard for those who don't share those beliefs to make an impact.

Note that when you have people who are more interested in making education about indoctrination, and not about actually teaching things based in reality, then you are bound to have problems.

For many years, because of the number of students affected, that meant that publishers of textbooks would often skew their texts towards Texas' known bias, and a lot of other states share Texas' bias. That said, in recent years, due to the increase in population, California in particular, has become such a huge consumer of textbooks, enough to make it worth it for Publishers to publish more scientific and accurate texts.

It's not Texas in particular that caused the problem, but they are certainly one of the leaders. Things are changing for the better, but certainly much too slowly for many people's tastes. But of course, demographics just don't change overnight.

 

When I first arrived in Texas some twenty something years ago, I literally did not even know a single person in town that was not a Caucasian. Now, I do not have anyone living in five blocks of me that I have ever seen that is Caucasian. I could name what race is quickly taking over, but there is no point. They are good neighbors, but very set in their beliefs. (Nothing wrong with that either.)

They are the ones advocating Creationism to such an extreme. I have no problem with that, so long as the law does not require me to share their beliefs. But public schools should probably leave Theology to the institutions it originates from and teach undebatable things instead of Doctrine.

The race I refer to believes that birth control is sinful, so in a decade or two they will double in numbers. People often doubt this, but it really is true. They are like felines in that once they hit puberty, they are almost certain to have kittens. (Pun intended. But again, nothing wrong with how they choose to live.)

I think the bulk of the changes in textbooks are actually made by politicians trying to sway their vote. I cannot say if it woks or not, but I can say that I have never once heard anyone in Texas advocate Creationism to be taught in schools who was not already a politician.

*Edit* Typos.