Teacher walks into the third grade classroom, dressed like a Pilgrim.
Initial delight of the elementary set quickly turns sour as California teacher Bill Morgan snatches pencils, papers, and books off student desks and stuffs the school supplies into a bag.
Mr. Morgan declares the items "discovered" and therefore, now belong to him.
Educators call this teaching tool a "discrepant event", an attention getting occurrence that engages cognitive conflict.
In other words...the turn of the Thanksgiving table on Morgan's third grade students resulted in one healthy serving of questioning that propelled the kids past the turkey and gravy and into the real stuffing of the first sit-down meal between Pilgrims and Native Americans.
These kids learned-and retained-that all was not so hunky-dory in the days of Mayflower vs. Plymouth Rock.
Morgan-a thirty-five year educator-made a conscious decision to move away from the more traditional Thanksgiving teaching approach.
Morgan is among elementary school teachers who have ditched the traditional Thanksgiving lesson, in which children dress up like Indians and Pilgrims and act out a romanticized version of their first meetings.
He has replaced it with a more realistic look at the complex relationship between Indians and white settlers.
Morgan said he still wants his pupils at Cleveland Elementary School in San Francisco to celebrate Thanksgiving. But "what I am trying to portray is a different point of view."
Even American Indians are divided on how to approach a holiday that some believe symbolizes the start of a hostile takeover of their lands.
Chuck Larson-a Tacoma, Washington teacher-who is also an American Indian-states Thanksgiving was never an easy holiday to deal with in the classroom.
"Every year I have been faced with the professional and moral dilemma of just how to be honest and informative with my children at Thanksgiving without passing on historical distortions, and racial and cultural stereotypes.
The problem is that part of what you and I learned in our own childhood about the "Pilgrims" and "Squanto" and the "First Thanksgiving" is a mixture of both history and myth. But the THEME of Thanksgiving has truth and integrity far above and beyond what we and our forebearers have made of it. Thanksgiving is a bigger concept than just the story of the founding of the Plymouth Plantation."
Larson feels Americans need to try to reach beyond the myths to some degree of historic truth.
"Our contemporary mix of myth and history about the "First" Thanksgiving at Plymouth developed in the 1890s and early 1900s. Our country was desperately trying to pull together its many diverse peoples into a common national identity.
In consequence, what started as an inspirational bit of New England folklore, soon grew into the full-fledged American Thanksgiving we now know. It emerged complete with stereotyped Indians and stereotyped Whites, incomplete history, and a mythical significance as our "First Thanksgiving." But was it really our FIRST American Thanksgiving?
So what do we teach to our children?
"...Thanksgiving week at Plymouth Plantation in 1621, the friendship was guarded and not always sincere, and the peace was very soon abused. But for three days in New England's history, peace and friendship were there."
Americans-a people reeling from predatory polarization by a fear-mongering administration that turned neighbor against neighbor-can embrace this Thanksgiving as a symbolic promise which moves us forward as a country, once again united.
The promise of a fresh start. The promise of new times.
Balance the historical truths of America's past and apply the positive inspiration to the hopes of our future as a country.
Dare to hope.
And be thankful we live in a country where hope still abounds.
"It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get to where we are today, but we have just begun. Today we begin in earnest the work of making sure that the world we leave our children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today."
--Barack Obama
U.S. Senator and Author, "The Audacity of Hope"
Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.
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