Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
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Thursday, November 23, 2006
Happy (?) Thanksgiving
This is a tough one for me. I believe in honesty. I believe in history. I believe in telling kids the truth. But if I were a teacher on Thanksgiving, would I do this:
“Teacher Bill Morgan walks into his third-grade class wearing a black Pilgrim hat made of construction paper and begins snatching up pencils, backpacks and glue sticks from his pupils. He tells them the items now belong to him because he “discovered” them.”
Is it wrong for kids to dress up and celebrate Thanksgiving in school programs across the country?
I don’t know. According to the historian in the CNN story, at the first Thanksgiving actually was a polite cross-cultural event in which native Americans and Pilgrims basically got along and shared a meal. The peace didn’t last long and the arrival of the Europeans ultimately was the harbinger of many bad things to come for the native peoples of this continent.
But at least for that brief moment in time, everyone was cordial.
Is that enough? Is it dishonest to promote Thanksgiving to kids as a great lesson in the fellowship of man? Put yourself in Bill Morgan’s shoes. What would you teach your kids about today?
(Image credit: www.timesnews.net)
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