Cristopher Colombia in primary school curriculum

Do you mean Henry the Navigator? I've heard of him.

My original point, tho, was not to re-write history but to give it a factual recitation. I don't think his name ought to be attached to a lovely extra day of holiday and whilst he might be 'significant', because let's face it, who's heard of Prince Henry of Portugal, he should not be celebrated.

But again these are historical things that have become more modern. Canada 'celebrates' Queen Victoria's birthday as a bank holiday. But to most Canucks it's May two four weekend. I couldn't give a toss about celebrating her birthday but enjoy the bank holiday.

In that vein, we celebrate Canada Day which loosely is the day we became a country. Should we not celebrate it as it marks our divorce from the original colonisers (British, French....) but celebrates the creation of a country from the Indigenous people? Then to further complicate, which colonisation is horrific, many of the indigenous people fought with the colonisers - war of 1812 - French/Hurons vs English/Iroquois.

Most colonisers weren't great people - including some of the founding fathers who owned slaves including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson but are important historical people in terms of the creation of the US and writing of the constitution.

We can identify these things, but rewriting history through a modern lens certainly isn't simple and can be naive.

indigenous people are people who are native to the land.

Why is everyone just commenting without looking up what’s actually on the ks1 curriculum? It’s not a secret, there is loads available online to see what should be covered. If you’re not sure, look up bbc bitesize - it’s a really good resource. What you learnt at school 30 years ago isn’t the best guide to how things are taught now.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/zkqmhyc

But if the Columbus story is not age-appropriate for Year 1 then maybe it just shouldn't be taught until a later age, rather than being sanitised.

It would be like saying Stalin was a "significant leader in the 20th century" without mentioning the gulags and the awful human rights abuses that he perpetrated.

This. I don't think we should start censoring history.
As you say, he *is a significant historical figure.
I do think though that not enough is taught in school about the colonizing aspect of history though - it's glossed over and glamorized.
Say what really happened! (age appropriately of course)

Exactly this. I learned about WWII at primary and for some reason missed it during secondary. For years I thought WWII was evacuation, rationing and a bit of jolly singing in air raid shelters. I didn’t know about the destruction of cities, the deaths in bombing raids, the ptsd, the civilian massacres in Europe, the rape in Berlin. I didn’t even know much about the Holocaust.

The horrors are not appropriate for primary so you have to teach a sanitised version or avoid completely.

This is year 1. It will be looking at a map and drawing pictures of ships.

OP

Things have to be taught in an age appropriate way. When primary children learn about WWII they are taught about evacuation, they are not taught about some of the horrific atrocities. They might learn bout Anne Frank but not the details that are either in the diary or events that occurred around them.

Are people being wilfully obtuse on this thread?? The poster wants the history to be taught as accurately as possible and is querying this. She is not saying that it should not be taught at all.

It has also attracted the closet racists of MN. ‘How dare she question the education her child is receiving, when she is from a different country’.

Rape, disease and genocide existed in South America and everywhere else long before Columbus, and indeed long after.

I would actually speak to school about what it is they will actually be learning and how it is likely to be presented. Many years ago when I was at school he and other explorers were presented as enigmatic heroes. I later learned that was one view but of course it wasn't a balanced view at all. I did my own research as I got older and realised for me he wasn't someone to be admired.

I would hope that nowadays the teaching with regards to him would be more balanced but ypur child is only in year 1 so I would doubt it.

How very naive.

There are many versions of any historic events by virtue of them being historic, recorded by few who were literate and subjective / recorded with a bias. If you were born and educated in Mexico you will also have been taught with a bias just a different one to that taught in Europe. Historic events are rewritten many times over.

Schools here are taught the details they require to pass their eventual GCSE exams, beyond that is for a parent to teach.

Yes obviously things can be edited to make a viewpoint. Still this Palestinian youtuber does also show positireconversations that he has with young Israeli people. He dienst only show negative interactions.

Videos can be edited to show how thick and ignorant people are, or they can be edited to show how wonderfully balanced and knowledgeable they can be. It is all about which people you decide to include.

If you interview 20 people about ice cream and 17 of them prefer chocolate but you only include the 3 people who prefer vanilla in your video, that doesn't prove much about ice cream preferences. It probably just means you are trying to sell vanilla ice cream.

OP, there are going to be loads of topics taught in school. There is generally an attempt to teach them in a balanced way. I wouldn't worry too much.

I was living in Colombia when I was your son's age and I cannot remember a single one of the history topics that I must have been taught, let alone if they were biased or not. I can barely remember anything except winning an Easter egg hunt and being scared of one of the teachers.

Wel they are on video saying it.

The famine in Ireland and how it was caused by us, is about is about the only thing taught about Ireland in the UK.

Sounds like a totally unbiased YouTube video representing balanced Israeli views. No agenda or editing at all.

As others have said, he is a significant explorer.
you also seemed to have made assumptions about how this subject will be taught. Surely, if you want diversity then this includes encompassing history in the name of inclusivity.
how would your native country respond to a foreigner dictating what was taught in their curriculums?

Maybe you should educate yourself that Mexican cartels exist because of American economic colonialism

Yes but there was a marked contrast in the gradual opening up of rights/freedoms in the Old world through the late middle ages and early modern period with the actions of those same Europeans overseas

Slavery in England was banned by the Norman's after they took over in 1066. Feudalism wasn't fun but serfs had more rights than slaves. It was a series of mutual obligations which was hugely unequal but not the same as slavery and everyone was at least in theory governed by laws. By 1125 you had some limits on the rights of kings although it took a lot longer for any of that to reach common people. Peasants revolts etc helped gain more space for ordinary people, and civil wars led to the idea of constitutional monarchy rather than absolute monarchy. And then by the enlightenment you had ideas of freedom and democracy.
It definitely wasn't all sunshine and roses. But there was at least a concept of ones actions towards others being restrained by law and of a social contract. That was in huge contrast to the actions of those same Europeans overseas and to those deemed as "other". A contrast that was remarked upon by contemporary commentators (See Samuel Johnsons rather scathing remarks on American Colonials).
Spain's a little different because they were very feudal for a lot longer than say England and had an absolute monarchy. But I still think the "you can only judge people's actions by the values of their time" approach ignores that at least as the Age of Exploration was coming to an end the "values" we think we have today were already in development. They just weren't being applied equally.

Tacitus for example was a contemporary of the Roman Empire and at times very critical of it. Euripides had some strong things to say about the Greeks. Just because something was being done in a time period it doesn't mean it wasnt immoral or can't be criticised. Historians looking back at the 21st Century could argue Epstein was a product of his time and of the values of his time and in a sense he was (depending on who gets to set the values). But the fact so many people in power were seemingly OK with what he did doesn't make it right. So people with all the power 400 years ago being OK with something doesn't make it right,