Call for advice / tips for my son.
I know I have some teachers and some history buffs on my flist. Can anyone help me with a problem my son is having in his history class? He's responding very emotionally to the unit on European exploration of the new world and I'd like to give him a respite from all the horror. (I can't say that I blame him -- this is grim stuff and he's learning it rather suddenly.) I've written a letter to his supervisory teacher. Its text is behing the cut. Any ideas or thoughts would be much appreciated ... we still have 6 lessons to go before we move on to 2 units on the 13 colonies. I can't image that is going to be a whole lot sunnier :(
[EDIT] Damn. I forgot to mention in the teacher letter that he's outraged because "...smallpox killed many more people than the black plague ever did and yet no one even thinks about that!" (All on his own folks ... all on his own.) [END EDIT]
Ms Teacher,
... Right now, I'm wondering if you have some thoughts or ideas that could help me with my son's emotional reaction to his history classes.
He very much enjoyed the Native American unit but we've moved into European Exploration and he's quite upset about what he's reading. Tonight, at dinner, he explained to his dad that he believes this version of history, but that it's very different from the version he learned in "public school". In regular school, he says, he learned that the exploration was heroic and that a few Native Americans were killed along the way...mostly due to misunderstandings. In this "new version" of history, Europeans are slaughtering the natives left and right, accidentally and on purpose, for "no good reason".
I agree that it is good to teach the children the truth. We talked today about why it's important to know what really happened so that we don't make similar mistakes going forward.
It's just that I feel that this particular unit is unremittingly horrifying. I don't know I if I would have really noticed if my son weren't reacting so viscerally, but I can certainly see why it's all hitting him pretty hard. It's a big jump from innocence to awareness in about 21 school days.
I'm not sure if there's anything we can do except continue to move through this unit steadily. I can't see that stretching out his studies into more weeks would help much. I am hoping that he will feel better when we get to the point where the new country is fighting for its Independence.
I was wondering if you know of any way to help him maintain his equilibrium while he learns all these depressing truths.
Do you know of any side studies we could do that would give him some relief -- some kind of "good news" buried in all the bad. We don't have big blocks of time to devote to extensive studies but I'd be willing to make an effort to alleviate some of the grimness. Maybe there's a book or movie that you know of that shows Europeans being good and useful during this time period -- a missionary who fought for Native rights or an explorer who treated the Natives well, perhaps.
I'll do some web research tonight but I'm not sure what search terms would turn up positive AND truthful stories. :D
Thanks in advance for any thoughts you might share.
[EDIT] Damn. I forgot to mention in the teacher letter that he's outraged because "...smallpox killed many more people than the black plague ever did and yet no one even thinks about that!" (All on his own folks ... all on his own.) [END EDIT]
Ms Teacher,
... Right now, I'm wondering if you have some thoughts or ideas that could help me with my son's emotional reaction to his history classes.
He very much enjoyed the Native American unit but we've moved into European Exploration and he's quite upset about what he's reading. Tonight, at dinner, he explained to his dad that he believes this version of history, but that it's very different from the version he learned in "public school". In regular school, he says, he learned that the exploration was heroic and that a few Native Americans were killed along the way...mostly due to misunderstandings. In this "new version" of history, Europeans are slaughtering the natives left and right, accidentally and on purpose, for "no good reason".
I agree that it is good to teach the children the truth. We talked today about why it's important to know what really happened so that we don't make similar mistakes going forward.
It's just that I feel that this particular unit is unremittingly horrifying. I don't know I if I would have really noticed if my son weren't reacting so viscerally, but I can certainly see why it's all hitting him pretty hard. It's a big jump from innocence to awareness in about 21 school days.
I'm not sure if there's anything we can do except continue to move through this unit steadily. I can't see that stretching out his studies into more weeks would help much. I am hoping that he will feel better when we get to the point where the new country is fighting for its Independence.
I was wondering if you know of any way to help him maintain his equilibrium while he learns all these depressing truths.
Do you know of any side studies we could do that would give him some relief -- some kind of "good news" buried in all the bad. We don't have big blocks of time to devote to extensive studies but I'd be willing to make an effort to alleviate some of the grimness. Maybe there's a book or movie that you know of that shows Europeans being good and useful during this time period -- a missionary who fought for Native rights or an explorer who treated the Natives well, perhaps.
I'll do some web research tonight but I'm not sure what search terms would turn up positive AND truthful stories. :D
Thanks in advance for any thoughts you might share.