Teaching Thanksgiving, the Do's and Don'ts-Being Culturally Aware

Thanksgiving is a favored time of year in America. I remember learning about it myself in school. Pilgrims from the United Kingdom sailed to the Americas in search of freedom, and found Native Peoples already living and thriving in America. Facing a harsh winter, many Pilgrims died. Starving, they reached out to the Native Peoples for food and help. Native Peoples taught the Pilgrims how to hunt, farm, and survive. In gratitude, the Pilgrims and Natives sat down together for the very first Thanksgiving feast.

Sound familiar?

The problem with this narrative is...well there are lots of problems! I am not going to go into all the problems of this tale, you can do some Googling on your own to find out where the holes are in this story, and ask people from the Tribal Nations their opinion on it.

The point of this post is to say that as educators we have a greater responsibility to our students to put forth information that is accurate and correct. Retelling this narrative time and time again, year after year, recycling the same old "Pilgrim N' Indian" craftivities (ugh hurts my heart to even type it) and sending students home with this fairytale in their minds is doing no one any good.

Before I get a bunch of angry comments and emails about the importance of this holiday, let me remind my dear readers and followers that I am an enrolled member of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, and my point of view and opinion is just as valid, if not more so. I myself was taught this is school, year after year, and never questioned it until I was an adult! I really reflected on why I should be celebrating a holiday that brought death and misery to my ancestral peoples? Sorry to get deep, but it weighed on my heart. As a family, we decided to change the holiday into something that fit us.

Then I had to think about my students! As a teacher I never taught about Thanksgiving. I just avoided the holiday completely. I feel that many educators, regardless of their race and culture, feel uncomfortable teaching something that has the potential to land them in hot water.

​So without further ado, some DO's and DON'Ts for this time of year!

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The DO's and DON'Ts of teaching Thanksgiving in the classroom .

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Resources:

• Native 360
• Scholastic News (login required)
• Scholastic 
• Newsela
• National Gratitude Month

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How did you, or how will you, be teaching Thanksgiving? Do you have any other DO's or DON'Ts?

Thanks for commenting, sharing, and following!

-Mae