However the sad truth about it is that there is a whole other side of the story that is never told. It only takes minutes of research to find out the truth about Christopher Columbus and who actually is. Christopher Columbus did awful things but whats worse is that we are still glorifying him. For many Americans Columbus day is a nice day off from work, but for Native Americans they are reminded of the awful things their ancestors had to go through. One article I read quoted Christopher Columbus journal saying "I could conquer the whole of them with fifty men and govern them as I please." This quote really stood out to me because we are suppose to be teaching students about equality and treating every one the same. Yet here we are teaching them about Christopher Columbus, who is saying that he is so much better then these people, that he can just take them over and do whatever he wants with them. Is this really the type of message we want to be teaching our kids? Another quote that stood out to me in on of the articles was "why do some books not tell the truth." I understand we have to wait to a certain age before telling students the truth about Christopher Columbus, but maybe instead of telling them half the story, we should wait to tell them the whole story. Instead of glorifying Christopher Columbus at a young age, we should be telling our students the WHOLE story when they are old enough to handle it. I think that we should be using Christopher Columbus to teach our students how important it is to treat everyone as equals. Use this history to show them what he did was wrong, and make them question how they would feel if that happened to them today. I still think that we should be teaching our students about Christopher Columbus but the image of him really needs to change. I found this website that I thought would be helpful in teaching students the truth about Christopher Columbus.
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