I'm Sick of What Students Are Taught About American History

Until I was 8 years old, I thought that Christopher Columbus was a nice guy who discovered our country. The “everyone believed the world was flat, except the clever Columbus, who was brave enough to sail across an entire ocean for the sake of science” narrative stuck with me. When an older kid at summer camp told me the truth — that Christopher Columbus was a genocidal creep who didn’t even discover the country in the first place — I ended up crying in a bush. How could someone, who I thought was a hero, kill and enslave people? And why wasn’t I told this? I felt betrayed and lied to and took it fairly hard.

That was just the beginning. I continued to learn that the history we are taught at school is often very far from the truth — that the America of our history and the America of our history books are two very, very different things. The America of our history books is rose-colored, simple, and false. Most of the people we are supposed to look up to don’t really deserve it. Important historical figures — usually people of color — are written out of the narrative, while the camera zooms in on white males and airbrushes out their flaws.

Take the fourth of July. We’re taught about the Declaration of Independence, the founding fathers, and why exactly Americans should be so grateful to them. We’re not taught that the American Revolution didn’t start there, but with the Boston Massacre, during which a black man, Crispus Attucks, was killed by armed members of the state (British troops).

If you were to walk into the average middle — or even high — school, and ask who Crispus Attucks was, I bet the majority of students wouldn’t be able to answer you. They probably haven’t heard of Peter Salem or James Armistead Lafayette, two other Black men who were incredibly important for the course of history.

Now let’s do another test. Walk into a high school and ask who has heard of John Hancock. I bet someone will say they have. But why is John Hancock, a delegate notable mostly for the size of his signature, more famous than James Armistead Lafayette, a spy for the continental army who, despite being enslaved, enlisted in the Revolutionary War, worked as a spy, and reported on Benedict Arnold’s actions, fed the British false information, and was instrumental to the Battle of Yorktown victory. Our country’s history could have been completely different without his help, and yet not only is his name not widely known today, but he was re-enslaved as soon as the war was over. He died a free man, thanks to the help of the Marquis De Lafayette, but he’s been written out of our history books.

With an education like this, is it any wonder that the president can stand on a stage in this day and age and declare confederate statues our “heritage”? First of all, the confederacy is no one’s “heritage.” It lasted for only five years. My Harry Potter obsession has lasted for seven years, yet it would be crazy of me to demand people carve my fan fiction into a stone tablet and display it in a town square.

Second, every Confederate soldier was a traitor to the nation. This isn’t even a debate. They were literally traitors to the nation. And yet, because of the way we’ve historically told the story about the war, these greedy, racist traitors are still put on figurative and literal pedestals in this country.

If we want this country to get better, we have to admit that it was born flawed and continues to be flawed. Despite the efforts of certain senators to the contrary (excuse me, Senator Tom Cotton, your bill isn’t saving any history, just clinging to lies), it isn’t impossible to teach the truth of our flaws. Admitting this isn’t anti-patriotic — it’s far from it. Once we recognize there are problems, we’ll be able to try to fix them. Pretending that the country is perfect is not patriotism. It is denial. And it’s that denial (among other things) that keeps us from progress.

Kids like me have to be taught the true history of this country, not the plastic saccharine version with chopped-down cherry trees. Maybe if we learn about our mistakes alongside our successes, we’ll learn not to make the same mistakes again. Maybe we’ll keep making them anyway, but I have to hold out some faith. At the very least, I think that the kids who are going to be taught about Columbus and the founding fathers like me deserve to not be lied to.