I’ve always appreciated days off as much as the next person, but as a social studies teacher, it’s always bothered me that we celebrated a guy who chopped off the hands of natives who didn’t bring him enough gold (see item #7 on the History Channel’s list). Um, seriously? YouTube won’t allow it to be embedded, so here’s the link. I actually did teach about Columbus’s–and other explorers’–cruelty; one of my favorite tools was Tod Olsen’s play “Explorers Who Abused the Indians–and Got Away with It.” (I don’t even remember where I got my copy from originally, but this lesson plan…
I read. And quilt. A lot.