|
(2016
midterm assignment) Sample Student Midterm Answers 2016 (Index to # 1 samples) #1: Long Essay: learning, challenges, issues |
 |
Kelly
Arnold
Which America is Being Taught?
When our semester first began, one of the first things that were
mentioned was the idea of which America is being taught in our schools.
This question has been bothering me ever since.
I think back to my elementary school days and I remember learning the
story of Christopher Columbus sailing the ocean blue, the pilgrims on the
Mayflower, and our founding fathers establishing our Declaration of
Independence. I remember
participating in Thanksgiving Day programs, making cute turkey magnets, and
wearing pilgrim hats or Indian head dresses the week before break.
Even in high school when talking about U.S. History we bypassed a lot of
multicultural information it went straight into the founding fathers.
Looking at this now, it seems very one-sided. Why is it that in schools
we don’t discuss the realities of our beginnings?
After reading the poem “A New Story” by Simon J. Ortiz, I realized how
lost in our dominant culture thinking we are.
In this poem the main voice is a woman who is “looking for an Indian.”
She goes on to say “Every year, we put on a parade. In town, a Frontier
Day Parade. It's exciting and important, and we have a lot of participation… we
had some people who dressed up as Indians to make it more authentic, you
understand, real people…. We want to make it real, you understand, put a real
Indian on a float, not just a paper mache dummy or an Anglo dressed as an
Indian but a real Indian with feathers and paint. Maybe even a medicine man."
(15-17, 27-29, 42-47) This idea or view
is common in dominant culture. Any
culture other than your own is almost like a Disney story.
Something that is so unbelievable it must be a fairytale.
The minimal response of “Yes” throughout the poem brings a powerful yet
soft statement. How many people
actually think of Native American’s in this fairytale kind of way?
If all we are teaching is dominant culture and the happy times of our
history, then we are doing our kids as well as the native cultures an injustice.
In Christopher Columbus’s letters to Spain he talks of the new land he
has discovered. He shares with the King and Queen the greatness of the land and
how fertile it is for harvesting.
He speaks of it as if he is talking about the Garden of Eden in the book of
Genesis. Obviously Columbus comes from a cultural background where Christianity
or Catholicism is dominant. When he
begins to talk about the natives he says that “I
had to win their love, and to induce them to become Christians… and They have no
religion, nor idolatry, except that they all believe power and goodness to be in
heaven” (C.C 1.5). My question
would be how does he know this? Did
he ask them, or did he just press his culture on them?
When we look at the Native American Indian Creation stories, we get a
different idea of what they may have actually believed.
Columbus was convinced that they had no beliefs of their own, which may
not be the true story. The Iroquois
Creation Story 1 tells the story of Skywoman, the Chief of Skyworld’s wife and
how she came to the earth. In the
story it talks about a great Celestial Tree that was uprooted and that is where
Skywoman fell through down towards earth.
She had a daughter and her daughter had twin sons.
One was “Bad Mind” and the other “Good Mind”.
When you look at this story as a whole, and look at the book of Genesis
from the Bible you can see some intertextuality as well as syncretism. In the
Iroquois story you have two brothers who shift blame as well as one who is good
and bad. The Bad Mind brother is banished from the surface of the earth. In
Genesis you have Adam and Eve shifting blame, and their sons Cain and Able.
Cain kills his brother Abel and is sent out to be forever a vagabond.
When looking at these two stories it is easy to see similarities between
them. It is important for us,
despite our personal beliefs to see what others believe.
In many ways they may not be too far off from our own.
Had Columbus taken time to get to know the Native Americans, he may not
have been so quick to judge.
The last piece of literature and dominant culture I want to explore is
that of the William Bradford and “Of Plymouth Plantation”.
In school we teach about the First Thanksgiving Meal and how the Pilgrims
and Native American Indians came together in peace and enjoyed plenty of food
together. This is great, but what
happened prior to all this tells a bigger story of what it was like for the
Native Americans and the pilgrims.
There was war and bloodshed.
Disease killed off a large amount of the Native American Indians.
The pilgrims saw this new land as a gift from God and the only reason why
the Native American’s survived was because of his goodness.
“And
here is to be noted a special
providence of God, and a great mercy to this poor people, that here they got
seed to plant them corn the next year, or else they might have starved,
for they had none nor any likelihood to get any till the season had been past,
as the sequel did manifest. Neither it is likely they had had this, if the first
voyage had not been made, for the ground was now all covered with snow and hard
frozen; but the Lord is never wanting
unto His in their greatest needs; let His holy name have all the praise”
(Bradford 10.7). The pilgrims were so
determined to “Christianize” the people; they forgot that they were people.
In our culture it is easy to get caught up in what is dominant.
America is a “melting pot” of people.
There is a vast array of people from different cultures, ethnic
backgrounds, languages and beliefs.
For us to only teach one side of the spectrum is neglecting the history of the
rest. History is not just
one-sided, but multisided. These stories matter now.
They need to be shared in history classes.
These stories may not be appropriate in younger elementary grades, but in
high school they are. There is no
reason for students to not know the whole story.
In my future classroom, I hope to teach and share the multicultural
views on different aspects of literature as well as history.
There is more than one way to teach America.
