Cristopher Colombia in primary school curriculum

[Donotfitin]

So the school just sent the curriculum
for my DS year (Y1). They called him a “significant explorer”. I immediately queried it, because as a Latin American he’s seen as a very divisive figure who brought rape, disease, and genocide. In my country (Mexico) we’ve completely removed that date from
our calendar, and the statues, etc… have now been removed.

I‘m not against it, but I just want a nuanced approach. So AIBU?

I also think some events are important to teach.., but if you genuinely can't give the real history without inappropriately sanitising it or giving age innappropriate details that are too traumatic it doesn't hurt to teach that history later. That isn't erasing historical events.

Are there indigenous people here though?

Don't think the OP is requesting he be deleted from history, pero como dice, more nuanced and let's give all the points of view.

I especially like his statue in Barcelona, which is supposedly pointing to America but it:so in the wrong direction! 🤣

Well yeah! I mean they weren't wiped out by the Romans. Probably lots of us have a tiny bit of Celtic DNA in us. Some of us have Neanderthal DNA apparently.

We also learnt about Boudicca when we learnt about the Romans in Britain. In fact I think we might have learnt about her first... That's an angle which approaches the topic from the "colonised populations" point of view.
Likewise the Norman invasion is very much taught from the starting point of Harold Godwin son/the English army dashing down to Hastings. And I think includes reference to the Harrowing of the North. Its not just from the "brave Norman invaders" view.
And everyone knows the Vikings burnt down monasteries. In fact, it's only more recently the vikings were also farmers angle has been brought in.

The difference is "Columbus was a great explorer" sounds like it is only looking at the explorers viewpoint and ignoring the awful things done (and what Columbus himself said). Although the actual teaching might well be more nuanced than that.

YANBU. He was a "significant explorer" but he also brought with him slavery, rape and genocide. Glossing over these problematic aspects feels dishonest.

They were wiped out before the Romans and probably before the Celts. People seem to forget the Celts were immigrants/invaders.

I thought they'd determined he wasn't Italian. DNA test results revealed in October 2024 showed he was Spanish with Jewish ancestry.

BBC News - Columbus probably Spanish and Jewish, study says

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckg2049ezpko

Learning about explorers in primary school is one of the precursors to learning about colonialism, slavery, racism and genocide later on.

An equivalent would be "the brave and civilising Romans came to Britain. Some of the savage local inhabitants led by a crazy woman (who was really angry for reasons no-one understand) had a short-lived brutish uprising against them but other than that it was all bathhouses and roads. And even the illiterate locals learned not to live in bogs".
That's not how the Romans in Britain are taught.

Jesus should we just stop teaching history altogether? Is there anything from the past that is ok?

He was a significant explorer ….if you don’t like the Y1 curriculum (particularly not being taught about rape and slavery), you might want to teach that at home.

Just to pile on - the song Swing Low is a slave song and talks about slave suffering. It is offensive that it is the song for English Rugby. Every time I hear it here I cringe - it works both ways.

I find the attitude that “other countries had indigenous people but European countries surely never did” odd and I’m really curious to know why people think it.

Is it because we’re used to seeing Europeans as oppressors? Or because we want to emphasise the “our country has always been a melting pot of different immigrant groups” angle?

Of course there were indigenous people in Britain. That doesn’t mean they were in the “original” people. There is no one indigenous group, it just means the group who were here before the next wave of arrivals.

Different waves of people have reached Britain at different times and until the early modern period they mostly tried to massacre large parts of the existing population when they did so. The Saxons were just as oppressed by the Normans as the Maya were by the Spanish (with the possible exception of the smallpox angle).

If you have any British heritage you are almost certainly descended from both oppressors and victims, over multiple waves of invasion and violence. The same is true of just about every country on earth.

You could offer to go into school and speak to the class about how he impacted your home country and teach them bait how life in Mexico was before he arrived while your at it. My school would welcome this. It would help present the more nuanced and rounded view that would be much better.

Don’t forget to mention Human Sacrifice, Slavery, Ritual Cannibalism, Ritual Skinning, Stoning adulterers, and burning people alive.

All practiced by the Aztecs

When the education department set out the U.K. curriculum, they probably didn’t realise your son would be in a classroom somewhere in England.

do you honestly think your school should change the whole syllabus just because your son attends the school? How entitled.

Thank you for posting this. We teach John Cabot as an explorer along a similar narrative. It is possible to talk openly about injustice and colonialism with young children.

Is there any country that doesn’t have a terrible past? I think humanity is ultimately a power hunting shitshow of greed. Always has been and always will be.

Obviously it would have to be age appropriate 🤨🙄. But a wider understanding of the world is always a good thing. Children can learn that bad things happened on the past. You just have to teach it in the right way.

Totally agree, great comment.

Actually they probably weren't wiped out. Various peoples might have suffered from the effects of the climate changes or illness, but some would have probably survived. The Beaker People came from Europe but the British Isles weren't empty. The population was very small in any case and interbreeding would have been quite normal. A dig near Swindon found Neanderthal DNA in bones found there which showed that they weren't wiped out but probably interbred with the new peoples who arrived.

Same with Muhammad?

And very unlikely they are going to be talking about rape and genocide to Y1s. OP I think you are right to query this.

I've taught history for many years. The 'civilising white Europeans' version hasn't been predominant for decades.