Columbus was awful and we should be ashamed for celebrating him. We also learn way too much about native Americans, in some weird cultural guilt trip for past misdeeds. That isn't new--much of my childhood was wasted on learning native American history in the early 1990's.
Agreed. Maybe it's a regional thing, but I remember tons of time spent covering Native Americans in grades K-12. More than any other topic in history, probably. Meanwhile we barely covered European history outside the Age of Exploration, and the rest of the world received even less consideration.
From your "early 1990s" mention I'm thinking we're around the same age, though, so maybe it was different before, or it's changed since. Or, again, maybe it's regional. Mid Westerner, but didn't grow up anywhere near a reservation, for the record.
Wasted? Seriously? If you live in the Americas it's a part of the history of your home. If you think all history is a waste, then sure, but to focus on just the history of the people who lived on a landmass for most of its populated history is a bit inconsistent.
No, it is a waste as a schoolchild to spend years and years studying Native Americans at the expense of everything else, when literally everything we know about them can be learned fairly quickly. There simply isn't that much information there.
Having also been a schoolchild in the 90s, I assume the same material was simply being repeated over and over and over. The American school system is busted like that.
I had the exact opposite experience. Learning about native peoples and their history was extremely fascinating for me and I wouldn't like to have missed out on that knowledge. Learning more about other people is never a waste.
