What Kids Learn about Native American Culture in Elementary School
What Kids Learn about Native American Culture in Elementary School
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First!
2nd.
N’th.
Amaizeing.
nah. They teach you more than that, but “Maize” is all you remember. I also vaguely remember “Pueblo”.
don’t foget those sand paintings. dang, those were cool.
Of course, most never learn that at the time Maize was the proper name for corn, as corn meant the main grain of a country. Which is why the KJV Bible talks about corn in the ancient middle east.
Don’t forget “tejas” (friends) for where “Texas” came from, taught in TX schools. and making pemican from scratch. and the wearing of turkey feathers at the annual T-Day play. and making moccasins from the kit.
You learned to make pemican? I am jealous.
Dont forget
-feathers
-”hao” -supposed to mean hello or something
-beating your palm into your open mouth (indian call err something)
-and thanksgiving
and lets not forget being hoodwinked of land for a couple of pennies
damn pilgrims
“Beating your palm into..” oh nevermind
Yeah… That caught me off guard as well… I think everything Alaina learned about Native Americans she learned from old Warner Bros. cartoons.
you forgot making smoke signals…
Hau pronounced “hah-ue” it is a Lakota or as you prefer Sioux word “hello”
>supposed to mean hello or something
how(dy), not 好 [hao]
Not true! I also learned that the ‘Indians’ welcomed Columbus and his explorers with open arms. That the first Thanksgiving was celebrated with tons and tons of the same Indians coming to dinner with their good friends the Puritans, after teaching the poor new comers how to grow said maize by planting fish in the ground for fertilizer! Then we learned how all the Indians got mad that we wanted to “share” the land with them, even though we paid for it with valuable..beads.. and they started scalping everyone so we granted them some beautiful land of their very own so that one day they could build Casinos, because we were looking forward to their futures!!
;P
Then there was something about Small Pox and the Trail of Tears… but they didn’t unbrainwash us until many years later *glares*
You’re either ignorant or an a**. I find what you said to be very insulting to me and my people.
He said unbrainwash, meaning hey, all the things being taught in elementary school is FALSE. Therefore, since he’s saying it’s false, how is it insulting?
Tinashen isn’t being insulting, that really is about how Native American history is told in Elementary Schools. It’s really quite sad. I didn’t learn the truth of the matter until I was much older.
The whole thing is awful.
it’s spelled “maïs” not maize…
same word in french…
Incorrect.
excellent observation, but apparently not
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maize
oh yea, wikipedia most reliable source out there
Well, that, and there different housing devolpments. Of course the only one of those we ever remember is the teepee.
WIGWAMS!!!!
LOL.
I used to love that word!
…again?
Yup, any incorrect changes are almost immediately undone. Glad you think like me
Yeah, well, WE learned how to make fake buckskin out of paper bags
valuable knowledge
It’s funny because it’s true.
I have lived and taught in New Mexico for more than 20 years it is different here. I guess it depends on your location Many students I teach are Native American.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/maize
true….except here in Oklahoma!!! We got to play in teepees on a yearly basis at our school
Greedy white men took all the good land and put the American Indians on crappy land that wouldn’t grow anything. Hunted all the buffalo so that the American Indians couldn’t even hunt for food and then rewrote history to say how bad the American Indians were to fight and kill the white man.
Well, that’s what happens when you have inferior technology in the face good ol’ American manifest destiny.
As I said to “Tianashan” above, you’re either ignorant or an a**. I find what you said to be very insulting to me and my people.
Acoya both this and Tianashan are being facetious and saying that what we are ‘taught’ is all false and just made to make the white man look righteous and good. Despite all the evils alluded to in both. As a teacher, I can plainly see the sarcasm as a way of laughing at the insults learned in school. Kind of like when people say “slaves were happy because they got fed!”
I make all my students aware of all the evil and good in all societies. No sugar coating here!(and no lies about how good we treated anyone.)
I find the use of the phrase “my people” rather offensive, given “your people” apparently don’t have sarcasm. My people do, fortunately. (Aapátohsipikáni , you?)
I lived in Oklahoma too andthey taught us a little more than just corn, but not much more. Man, I wished we’d gotten to play with teepees at our school! We just got to color a map where different tribes originated from and then draw the trail of tears.
Sad stuff for 9 year olds that trail of tears.
Geeze, they still like to offer this as the first bit of knowledge in most college U.S. History courses when it comes to Native Americans. I know I’ll never forget it as much as I’ve been told.
I was just wondering why they changed the iPhone settings for the Graph Jam. They now put in a black background instead of the same as on the website, making the text unreadable on my iPhone.
Don’t forget they did Thanksgiving, and they all died.
well im not dead. as a native american i take offence to that. all ‘indians are not all dead, here in NM there are 19 tribes and a clear native american presence, i cant believe how ignorant and ill informed every one who has commented on this page is. except for cj and jc, and some others. mass genocide for real. as for the graph, its totally correct. the american public as a whole dosn’t know jack about natrive american history, if they did columbus day wouldn’t be a national holiday.
yeah well… you wouldn’t want to teach the children that the country that they live in was built upon a mass genocide that ranks right up there with the Nazi’s. Or that we systematically took all their land and destroyed their religion not to mention their self worth, in an attempt to wipe this “inferior” race and all memory of them off the face of the earth. no we don’t like to tell the truth…
Yeah, that could get you some bad press…and Jackson is on the $20 bill! Shameless!
We call it mais over here in the Netherlands
Pretty sure I’ve already seen this..
we also learned how America saved the savages from starvation and their primitive ways by giving them modern medicine and submarines
but how did they repay us? with a crass brutality that can only be expected of lesser civilizations: scalping. thankfully George Washington and the great American Army drove the beasts out over the Rocky Mountains, where they all died from cannibalism no doubt.
… You are either the most ignorant person I’ve ever seen (must be, seeing as how you have “palin” as your name). It’s people like you the poison the foundation of our world and constantly inhibit our progress into the future. Let me guess, you also believe that blacks deserve to be ground up and turned into bread or that asians need to be liquified into some sort of creamy paste to eat. You, my “fine” aquaintence, are an imbicile of the highest calibur.
LOL
Acoya, I think you might be taking these comments too seriously…
I am a full blood instead of telling what your ancestors did, this should brighten your day, Hail Hitler talk about a bunch of hypocrates.
Why Hitler Loved America
HOW THE U.S.A’s slaughter of Indians and immigration policies inspired him.
In Hitler’s view, the US had become a major power by ‘ethnic cleansing’ of the native inhabitants: he saw clearly that the US itself, which poses as a nation state, is in fact an Empire. It’s just that the anninhilation of the indigenous inhabitants was so complete that we don’t see the US as an Empire.
As Finkelstein has pointed out, Hitler’s ‘push for the East’ was explicitly inspired by the American setttlers ‘push for the West’. As Adam Tooze reveals in his superb Wages of Destruction, it’s true that Hitler compared the Russians to Indians, but it’s ALSO true that he compared them to AMERICAN Indians. As the Indians had been pushed off their lands and herded off to reservations, so the Russians (and Poles) would be herded off to super-concentration camps: i.e. neo-reservations, where, Hitler hoped, their numbers would be ‘thinned’ to the extent that Germans could easily rule them while using them as cheap labour.
http://www.
operationmorningstar. org/why_hitler_loved_america.
htm
Hitler’s “Inspiration”
“Hitler and His Secret Partners”:
(Department of Indian Affairs Superintendent D.C. Scott to B.C. Indian Agent-General Major D. McKay, DIA Archives, RG 10 series).
April 12, 1910
“It is readily acknowledged that Indian children lose their natural resistance to illness by habitating so closely in these schools, and that they die at a much higher rate than in their villages. But this alone does not justify a change in the policy of this Department, which is geared towards the FINAL SOLUTION OF OUR INDIAN PROBLEM.
”
Hitler drew another example of mass murder from American history. Since his youth he had been obsessed with the Wild West stories of Karl May. He viewed the fighting between cowboys and Indians in racial terms. In many of his speeches he referred with admiration to the victory of the white race in settling the American continent and driving out the inferior peoples, the Indians. With great fascination he listened to stories, which some of his associates who had been in America told him about the massacres of the Indians by the U.S. Calvary.
He was very interested in the way the Indian population had rapidly declined due to epidemics and starvation when the United States government forced them to live on the reservations. He thought the American government’s forced migrations of the Indians over great distances to barren reservation land was a deliberate policy of extermination. Just how much Hitler took from the American example of the destruction of the Indian nations is hard to say; however, frightening parallels can be drawn. For some time Hitler considered deporting the Jews to a large ‘reservation’ in the Lubin area where their numbers would be reduced through starvation and disease. (p. 273-274).
Hitler frequently referred to the Russians as ‘Redskins’.
http://www.
operationmorningstar. org/Hitlers%20Inspiration%20For%20Concentration%20Camps.
htm
Oh and asprin was originally willow bark…it never hurt your stomach lining until the white man made it from chemicals
THE REAL STORY OF THANKSGIVING
by Susan Bates
Most of us associate the holiday with happy Pilgrims and Indians sitting down to a big feast. And that did happen – once.
The story began in 1614 when a band of English explorers sailed home to England with a ship full of Patuxet Indians bound for slavery. They left behind smallpox which virtually wiped out those who had escaped. By the time the Pilgrims arrived in Massachusetts Bay they found only one living Patuxet Indian, a man named Squanto who had survived slavery in England and knew their language. He taught them to grow corn and to fish, and negotiated a peace treaty between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Nation. At the end of their first year, the Pilgrims held a great feast honoring Squanto and the Wampanoags.
But as word spread in England about the paradise to be found in the new world, religious zealots called Puritans began arriving by the boat load. Finding no fences around the land, they considered it to be in the public domain. Joined by other British settlers, they seized land, capturing strong young Natives for slaves and killing the rest. But the Pequot Nation had not agreed to the peace treaty Squanto had negotiated and they fought back. The Pequot War was one of the bloodiest Indian wars ever fought.
In 1637 near present day Groton, Connecticut, over 700 men, women and children of the Pequot Tribe had gathered for their annual Green Corn Festival which is our Thanksgiving celebration. In the predawn hours the sleeping Indians were surrounded by English and Dutch mercenaries who ordered them to come outside. Those who came out were shot or clubbed to death while the terrified women and children who huddled inside the longhouse were burned alive. The next day the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony declared “A Day Of Thanksgiving” because 700 unarmed men, women and children had been murdered.
Cheered by their “victory”, the brave colonists and their Indian allies attacked village after village. Women and children over 14 were sold into slavery while the rest were murdered. Boats loaded with a many as 500 slaves regularly left the ports of New England. Bounties were paid for Indian scalps to encourage as many deaths as possible.
Following an especially successful raid against the Pequot in what is now Stamford, Connecticut, the churches announced a second day of “thanksgiving” to celebrate victory over the heathen savages. During the feasting, the hacked off heads of Natives were kicked through the streets like soccer balls. Even the friendly Wampanoag did not escape the madness. Their chief was beheaded, and his head impaled on a pole in Plymouth, Massachusetts — where it remained on display for 24 years.
The killings became more and more frenzied, with days of thanksgiving feasts being held after each successful massacre. George Washington finally suggested that only one day of Thanksgiving per year be set aside instead of celebrating each and every massacre. Later Abraham Lincoln decreed Thanksgiving Day to be a legal national holiday during the Civil War — on the same day he ordered troops to march against the starving Sioux in Minnesota.
This story doesn’t have quite the same fuzzy feelings associated with it as the one where the Indians and Pilgrims are all sitting down together at the big feast. But we need to learn our true history so it won’t ever be repeated. Next Thanksgiving, when you gather with your loved ones to Thank God for all your blessings, think about those people who only wanted to live their lives and raise their families. They, also took time out to say “thank you” to Creator for all their blessings.
Your timeline is all kinds of screwed up. You might want to get a new history book. Your missing about 200 years.
And it would be nice to put you back on a boat from where your ancestors came from ahhhhhhh thats right mosy of you dont have a culture or a heritage you ppl are just mutts. Don’t they belong pounds. hahaha.
My time line isnt screwed up either. Columbus never made it here. What planet do you live on. And that elementary school stuff lmao
“They Called Corn Maize” should be above “Everything Else”
I remember something about Pocahontas doing naked cart wheels.
Yeah, I’m surprised Disney didn’t include that; go figure.
Yeah all I remember from school was that they were Indians and as I recall our textbook did not show “Indians” in the most positive light. They were made to seem as though they were primitive compared to their European counterparts. Also I didn’t learn the proper name for Native Americans until I reached middle school and that was through my own reading.
Pretty sure I’ve already seen this.
You fight for other people in foreign lands so that they can live in freedom.
But never consider returning the “Turtle Country” back to it natural inhabitants so that they too can live in the freedom they deserve.
You have little or no knowlege of the real people of “America”
I remember learning a bunch of total bullshit about Thanksgiving & Columbus and then briefly touching on the slaughter of thousands of people. And yet it has no affect on how we celebrate those holidays.
GO PUBLIC SCHOOL!
The Indian’s revenge: the comment about the Pequot indians is right on but now there is a huge casino there and the take is incredible…and one of the few industries doing well in these tough economic times.
It’s funny how PEOPLE fight ignorance, with ignorance… We ALL have a right to be bitter… all “races” have been slaves… displaced from “their” lands. As for who did who wrong when… who cares? Identifying people by things they can’t change… like where they were born, color of skin… this is the problem! We “Indians” didn’t all get along, in fact most didn’t… killing each other… fighting over land. In reality… we came here too! Just sooner. Saying “Indian” is just as stupid as saying “White”…I am both! So, being “Indian” (probably a mix of other “races”), weather you’re red… or brown… is just another label, born of the classic human short coming, labeling… simplifying something that is infinitely complex, the human being! Stop being afraid. Teach! Who cares if someone insults “your people” ? Consider that a favor, waking you up from the illusion that you have a “People”. Your people are those who love you & teach you, those who support you… & they come in all colors, from all locations… stop rejecting them before you even know who they are! If you are so angry, KILL… but kill those who continue the genocide… the new genocide on the poor working people… a genocide against those who want clean water and wholesome food at the cost of “progress” & the destruction of capitolism… don’t waste your time bickering with their unwitting servants! UPLIFT & UNIFY YOU FOOLS! Everything you are taught in school is some form of lie or a cleverly placed half truth designed to support a lie… all so skillfully crafted as to convince well meaning, honest teachers to perpetuate the status quo… Spread love! Or shut up and fight for real… but quit posturing///
amen to the oso,
most skins i know would have the sense to laugh at the maiz graph. the truth will come out eventually. even columbus remains widely misunderstood. anyone with euro or native traditional sensibilities should know that the Creator will set things straight in good time.
ayyyyyyyy!
My elders taught me that the correct war to refer to most traditional Native homes such as the Tepee, Wigwam and Long House (to name a few) as a Lodge. It is sad how little is taught about the many contributions our collective Native Peoples have made in foods, games, medicine and even government. Too bad people are never taught how President Abraham Lincoln sign extermination orders to kill Native Peoples so the Union could be further expanded. I agree that our children should be taught the true history of Native peoples and that all persons also take the opportunity to learn about our history as a nation – this includes the bad and the good for nations of people since we are all Americans now.
Correction: I ment correct word not war 8^)
I agree with Oso Barbudo that we are all human beings and come from some where. I too am Native and White. Remember that history has always been written by the “winners” and thereby always slanted to their point of view. To all my relations!!!
Sooooo true!!! I was an American Indian Studies major in college and it was from those classes I learned of all the crap and lies I was taught as a kid. It’s ridiculous.
Yeah its sad that we only learn little about Native-Americans in school. But how they were forced off their lands to live on reservations only to satisfy the white mans greed for more land. And not to mention the amount of Indians that died from exposure from diseases. And how they were forced into slavery. There should be a Native-American month just like we have a Black History month its only fair. We have tons we can learn from Native-American culture.
In my experience, that big red slice would actually be “the white people took over their land.” I think someone might have mentioned to me that they call corn maize once in all of my elementary school years. This did make me laugh though!