Why Do We Teach Our Kids That Columbus Discovered America?

We teach little kindergartners and 1st graders the vile filth that Columbus discovered America, and proved the Earth was round while doing so. Only to un-teach these kids later on as they grow older into middle school ages. Why do we do this?

Columbus did not discover America. The Natives did. And it's likely the natives got here before recorded history ever began.
Columbus was not the first European to find the Americas. Erik the Red and his son Leif Erikson stepped foot in Greenland and Newfoundland in the year 985 AD, beating Columbus by a little over 500 years.
The Asians and the Polynesians knew of the Americas before all of this as well. Asian artifacts carbon dated over 600 years old have been found in South America.

A few things Columbus does deserve credit for are:
-Massacring an entire island of Bahamian natives, the Lucayans, in a quest for gold
-Introducing hundreds of invasive species to the new world.
-Being a founding father of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/columbus_day

 

Why don't you become a kindergarten teacher?

 

Why do we teach children all kinds of garbage. I hated history in school....I wanted concepts and real understandings.....and was never interested in memorizing dates....memorizing this and memorizing that..mostly all turns out to be a bunch of lies, anyway......
I liked the creative art, writing classes and science and math, as well....but history....was not my main subject ever.

 

History is a good topic. Understanding the past helps us better understand why things are the way they are. Problem is all the propaganda and misinformation.

 

He never even stepped foot in (what would become) the continental US. He made it to the islands and butchered the locals in an way that made later settlers look humane to the mainland native tribes. We shouldn't have a day celebrating anything about him. That goes for St. Patrick too but obviously in a different part of the world.

 

to answer the title ...because the teachers were teaching what was right from their perspective

..now why do modern day schools teach it?..i have no idea...probably because its easier

 

I think it has it's roots in European perspective and has become traditional. If is a matter of national pride for some and tradition is difficult to expunge in the face of any information and ritualistic observances are still performed.

Good question.

 

I think understanding the way things are sheds light on why history is the way it is not the other way round. History is always told or retold in the present.

 

As it is with modern day "history" (the news)

 

i think you've pretty much nailed it. the short answer is of course politics.
columbus marks the beginning of the european invasion of the western hemisphere in ernist. erikson was a long time before that, started a colony that failed within a very few years.
columbus was the beginning of a sustained invasion. his mission though, wasn't to discover or even colonize. it was to loot india. the carribian got in the way, so he looted there instead.

the people already here, in some places and ways as advanced as europe, even in a few places more so, had indeed been here thousands of years.
a human remains was discovered in california 11,000 years old.
so the idea of the european invasion 'discovering' anything is pretty silly.

but it is an excuse to teach history in a way that denies credit for the cultures and technologies of people already here, and of course the same of repeated genocides committed against them.

i hated history in school, precisely because of this completely illogical discontinuity of the chronology of one location, and then before that columbus discontinuity in the teaching, all the focus shifted to ancient europe, a blantent and self serving denial of the real history that was going on in the western hemisphere before that time.

i can think of several reasons for this. none of which i would consider good. there's the economics uber alis problem, that we see having been introduced by rome, when it banned possession by individuals of the means of grinding their own grain. a very close parallel to what corporate economics is inflicting on our world today.

there exists today an economically motivated interest in keeping people from realizing what an individual might otherwise be able to do for themselves.

indiginious culture there is a lot of small scale and localization, where as corporate profits come from keeping things large scale and centralized.

 

Yes well I wonder if they consider Columbus to be a Native?? (Might be why)

 

I forgot to mention,

Columbus' credentials of proving the Earth was round is an even bigger joke. The ancient Greek and Egyptians knew the Earth was round. The early civilizations had lots of knowledge and study of astronomy.

Indeed

 

You hit the nail on the head – there are archaeological sites throughout the Americas that date back thousands of years including Pedra Furada in Brazil which Carbon-14 indicates a date of 60,000 years BP (Before Present)


Hotwater

 

"vile filth" seems a bit harsh. no, it's not true. but ultimately it really doesn't make much of a difference. it's not like we're teaching that rape is a positive thing; something like that is what i would consider vile filth rather than a generally meaningless tall tale.

 

idk, I wonder about the whole story of Ben Franklin discovering electricity (sometimes even inventing) when he flew his kite with a key into a storm cloud. producing an electric charge between plates of two dissimilar metals was known about at least back to the 17th century.

it might be more accurate to say that Ben Franklin realized that lightning was infact the same thing as other electricity.

 

It sometimes seems in order to correct history we should take it to the other extreme (e.g. instead of a hero he's vile filth), like the natives of the americas were all peaceful and morally sound and then came Columbus and corrupted paradise. This makes me shake my head. It seems like scapegoating as usual. To be more precise: Columbus was just a product of his time and culture and he was probably not more vile or immoral filth than your own average european ancestor. But why look at it like that huh.

The reason why it is teached that he discovered the 'new world' is of course because his discovery of it (which it was for everyone in the old world at that time and for centuries after... yep nobody knew of any erikson) had the biggest consequences. There may have been a viking ship or more that reached north america but it did not have the same impact on either the americas or any european country. That it later came to light that Columbus was not the first european that reached the 'new world', and before the first european the american natives are technically the ones that discovered these continents by crossing the pacific ocean and the bering sea does not change that. So... that is probably why it is still teached.

Also, about the earth being round being old news already at that time: this was not a fact for everyone by far. Yes, people like Aristotle found out centuries before that the earth was round but this was not common knowledge at all. Not in the age of Columbus and most likely also not for everyone in Aristotle and Pythagoras' societies. So when one claims it was already known to the ancient egyptians and ancient greeks I feel like pointing out that only such people as Aristotle, Pythagoras, Plato (and their employees, peers and fellow philosophers, and maybe some sailors) were aware of it. Many crewmembers of Colubmus were sincerely afraid of reaching the end of the world and falling off. And even many educated people at that time did not find sailing west to reach the east a sound idea at all.

 

Check my link in post 1, Asmo. I barely scraped the surface in my vilified description of Columbus, but my link paints a clearer picture.

 

My childrens's teachers are going to hate me. I fully intend to teach my kids the real stories.

 

There was recently another topic about Columbus. It was clear there that the threadstarter based himself only on the article in a link. I'm sure you are aware that the author of such a link can paint a distorted picture by focussing everything on Columbus (I'm not saying he as the one responsible for these expeditions isn't partially to blame for the torturing, killing and enslaving but like I said he was a product of his society... most likely the outlooks of your own european ancestors of that time would shock you just as much). By our current standards the far majority of humans in that age could be considered vile filth, but there are such things called zeitgeist and context. Did you read the original sources about his travels or do you base yourself on the picture the the writer of that link paints for you?

 

columbus cant be blamed ...he was just an actor working for the illuminati

i know this to be true because i saw someone say it in a youtube video