Columbus Day: Different Viewpoints on `Discovering' America

Growing up, my early education about Christopher Columbus didn’t drill much deeper than a sanitized version of the journeys of the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. That perspective changed when a member of a New England American Indian tribe visited my eighth-grade history class. He described the devastating impact on his ancestors and subsequent generations following being “discovered” by European explorers. As philosopher George Santayana wrote, Columbus "gave the world another world." And that world was far more complex than had been hinted at in my middle school textbooks.

Bill Bigelow, co-director of the Zinn Education Project and co-editor of the Rethinking Columbus, writes that over the course of his 30 years of teaching history, he’s regularly asked students who was already “here” when the explorers' ships arrived. Not once has a student answered “the Tainos” – the name of the indigenous people who populated the continent in 1492.

"How do we explain that?” asks Bigelow, writing in the Huffington Post. “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?"

(It's worth noting that Bigelow's book was banned last winter by the Tuscon School District after Arizona lawmakers voted to prohibit ethnic studies programs.)

There are efforts at work to make sure Columbus' role in history is understood, and taught, as a more complex element of America’s creation. The National History Education Clearinghouse, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Education, even offers a “Mythbusters” website of teaching materials to help educators provide a more nuanced portrait of the European explorer. But as Bigelow argues, there’s still a long way to go.

Diana King, a teacher At Waubun High School located on a Minnesota reservation and a member of the White Earth Indian Nation, approaches Columbus Day as an opportunity to focus on the power of survival.

 "We should have been wiped out," said King, in a piece published as part of the McClatchy News Service’s Progressive Media Project. "It's a miracle Native people still exist. I have never liked the word 'conquered.' We are still here after 500 years. And maybe every time Columbus Day comes around, we should rethink who the real heroes are: the explorer or the survivors?"

Some states and local municipalities, along with their school districts, have dropped observance of the federal Columbus Day holiday. A handful of communities have gone so far as to replace it with Indigenous Peoples Day, which started in Berkeley, Calif. in 1992 (the 500th anniversary of Columbus' voyage).

When it comes to the current business of schooling, America has pressing concerns beyond how to approach the teaching of Columbus: There’s a sizeable, and stubborn, achievement gap for students of American Indian and Alaskan Native (AI/AN) descent stretching from kindergarten through higher education.

On the National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as “the Nation’s Report Card,” AI/AN students in grades 4 and 8 lag behind nearly all of their peers. In mathematics, the gap has widened since 2005, with AI/AN students scoring on average 16 points lower than their non-AI/AN peers in grade 4, and 19 points lower in grade 8. In reading, scores for AI/AN students have stagnated since 2005, again with significantly lower scores than those posted by non-AI/AN students.

Addressing those gaps is a priority for the Obama administration, says U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. So is responding to concerns among tribal communities that they don’t have enough resources for the education of their own children. To that end, late last week Duncan announced close to $2 million in new grants to Tribal Education Agencies, including nearly $740,000 for the Chickasaw Nation in Oklahoma. The goal is to improve the level of community engagement, along with increased responsibility and accountability, Duncan said.

“We have a profound obligation to ensure that all children, including American Indian and Alaska Native students, have the opportunity to receive a 21st century education,” Duncan said in a statement. “Tribal leaders, teachers, and parents are best-suited to identify and address the needs of their children, and tribal communities deserve to play a greater role in providing American Indian and Alaska Native students with the tools and support they need to be successful in school and beyond.”

So where does America stand on this anniversary of the discovery of the `New World?’ Historians are pushing for a more nuanced view of the history of the United States’ origins, and schools are grappling with how to address the equity and achievement gaps that persist more than 500 years after Columbus set sail. Achieving those goals will require looking back – and forward -- with clearer eyes.

Have a question, comment or concern for the Educated Reporter? Email EWA public editor Emily Richmond at erichmond@ewa.org. She also tweets @EWAEmily.