We have already gone over this exact issue in class during the exercise in which we were to choose a side on a certain issue, and then accordingly stand somewhere along the line in between the two opposing walls of either yes or no. One of the issues that we went over really stood out to me, and made me feel strongly irritated with the way in which some of the students felt on the subject.
The issue I am referring to is the one about parents opposing their young kids working on an arts project for thanksgiving, where they create feather headdresses and stereotypical pilgrim hats, to symbolize thanksgiving. Many students who agreed with the opposition of such an activity brought about the points that these are merely stereotypes and that children should know the truth. Here is my point on this, which I had already briefly touched upon during the exercise, but since have had much more time to dwell on.
There is a reason why particular parts of history are changed when being taught to young children in schools. The reason being primarily that the children are at too young of an age to fully understand the actual concept, and also that the material itself is too graphic and dark for such young children. There are no negative side effects that I can think of that come out of being taught these small white lies as a child. I myself was one of these children who was taught a condensed version of such topics as Thanksgiving and more specifically Christopher Columbus. Columbus himself is a glorified murder who's greed far exceeded that of all of his men.
Once children become the appropriate age, they are informed that they weren't told the truth on these specific lessons, and then are taught the real accuracies. At this point, the children are able to comprehend the fact that they weren't told the truth previously, they can exclude all information from before, and then can move on knowing the facts as they did happen. Someone at the time had commented that by condensing the history lessons for younger kids, that we are in turn lying. Well. if you were to consider this a lie that should not be told, then while you explain to these kids the truth about their history lessons, you should just go head and tell them that Santa Claus isn't real, and that it is actually the child's parents who put money under their pillow in the exchange of a tooth. Let me know what you guys think.
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