Should we teach children the truth about Thanksgiving?

November 26, 11:09 AMNY Education ExaminerLorri Giovinco-Harte

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It's almost Thanksgiving and in schools across the United States, children will be engaged in lessons, projects, and discussions about the holiday.  Many younger children will be involved in plays or pageants which recreate the traditional scene of the tranquil meal between the Native Americans and the European settlers.  It is a heartwarming scenario and represents the qualities which we most like to associate ourselves with - gratitude, graciousness, and  friendship towards other cultures.

Still, we know that the actual relationship between the Native Americans and the settlers was quite different than what is often depicted in some history books.

Like many people in my age group, most of the American history that I learned in school painted a very favorable picture of the history of the United States.  Text books brushed over negative aspects and class discussions rarely centered around any of our darker history.  One or two paragraphs were devoted to the Vietnam War and there was never any mention of the Japanese Internment Camps from World War II.

Thankfully, there have since been improvements made in history curricula and many schools attempt to bring about a more balanced and realistic view of our nation's past.  Still, some would argue that we have a long way to go in correctly depicting the events which shaped our country.  Sheltering children from the reality of our past prevents them from developing a realistic picture of the United States and therefore hinders the development of critical thinking which can lead to creating necessary improvements and prevent a repetition of past events.

So, how should we teach the story of the first Thanksgiving?

We know, of course, that the relationship between the Native Americans and early settlers is far from that which has been depicted in the traditional story.  Jacqueline Keeler, a member of the Dineh Nation and the Yankton Dakota Sioux, has written the following in response to her feelings about the holiday:

This may surprise those people who wonder what Native Americans think of this official U.S. celebration of the survival of early arrivals in a European invasion that culminated in the death of 10 to 30 million native people.

Whereas modern depictions of the first Thanksgiving portray two groups who freely exchanged resources, Keeler explains that the trade was a bit different:

...at the "first Thanksgiving" the Wampanoags provided most of the food -- and signed a treaty granting Pilgrims the right to the land at Plymouth, the real reason for the first Thanksgiving.

What did the Europeans give in return? Within 20 years European disease and treachery had decimated the Wampanoags. Most diseases then came from animals that Europeans had domesticated. Cowpox from cows led to smallpox, one of the great killers of our people, spread through gifts of blankets used by infected Europeans. Some estimate that diseases accounted for a death toll reaching 90 percent in some Native American communities.

How then, can we teach children to develop a realistic picture of our history while maintaining a tradition that is widely celebrated and which tries to depict the higher aspects of human nature?

By the same token, don't we have a moral obligation to expose our children to the truth?

Jonathan Larsen is an educator, historian, and American of Native descent, who has created a project entitled, "Teaching about Thanksgiving" for The Fourth World Documentation Project of The Center for World Indigenous Studies.  The project includes a historically accurate retelling of the first Thanksgiving as well as "study and discussion questions, ideas for enrichment, art projects, and authentic recipes -- all intended to enable teachers to accurately portray the events surrounding the first Thanksgiving."

Larsen provides several suggestions for educators and parents who wish to provide children with a balanced view of the holiday including ways to avoid stereotyping and inaccuracy.  To do so, would certainly provide children with a more realistic picture, but what about those who fear that this might take away from the spirit and goodwill expressed during Thanksgiving?  It is a time in which children are encouraged to express gratitude and generosity, and we certainly do not want to take away opportunities for such important lessons.

Larsen explains that we need not worry, for although much of what we have learned about the holiday may have been steeped in 'myth' and historical fallacies, the overall message of Thanksgiving is universal:

..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 Plymouth Plantation.

So while some parents and teachers may struggle about how to teach their children about the holiday, they need not fear that providing realistic explanations for the events will take away from the values which Thanksgiving represents.  These values are universal.

Keeler also explains that despite the brutality which shrouds the holiday, there lies within it the message of hope:

Because if we can survive, with our ability to share and to give intact, then the evil and the good will that met that Thanksgiving day in the land of the Wampanoag will have come full circle.

And the healing can begin.