Why Is Christopher Columbus Wrong

Lies. That’s what is being coaxed into the brains of America’s children every single year near October 12th. Although Christopher Columbus may have sailed the ocean blue in 1492 and landed in the Bahamas, he was not the first European to cross the Atlantic and the noble hero he is depicted as in elementary schools across America is distant from the true reality of his character. Moreover, the course of American education retaining to Christopher Columbus must be shifted. The education curriculum should not mention him at all during the usual first and fifth grade years, but rather wait until tenth grade when students can fully comprehend the facts around his not so gallant nature. Ultimately, the deeds of the genuine Christopher Columbus

and the Spaniards are actions budding adolescents can not fully comprehend or are mentally prepared to perceive.
Education revolving about Christopher Columbus requires drastic alterations. First and foremost, teachers for first graders expounded on how he “discovered” the Americas, sailed the Niña, Pinta and Santa María and how he sailed from Spain. These 6-7 year olds venerated him, comparing Columbus to honorable superheroes.

These youngsters will realize later in their academic career that they were betrayed by their teachers who taught them falsities and shaded them from the truth. Furthermore, Columbus did not truly discover the Americas. In 1000, Leif Erikson, a Norse seafarer from Scandinavia, settled a colony near L’Anse aux Meadows in present-day Newfoundland. Erikson was not backed by a powerful nation (like Columbus was) and consequently, the Scandinavians abandoned their feeble settlement. Likewise, if the Native Americans are discounted for discovering America, the first European to truly arrive at the America's first was not Christopher Columbus, but rather Leif Erikson. However that falsehood is not as hefty as being told Columbus lived in harmony with the Native Americans and then discovering the absolute truth in tenth grade. Upon meeting the Native Americans (who he called Indians for he thought he was in the Indies in Asia), he described them as “naive” and even stated in his journal how “They would make fine servants”. Soon after becoming acquainted with them, Spaniards enslaved Native Americans and forced them to find obscenely large amounts of gold. If Native Americans did not reach the impossibly immense gold quota, their hands

were cut off. Out of fear of the Spaniards, Native Americans were committing suicide and killing their newborns in order to “save” them from the Spaniards. Additionally, as taught in fifth grade, the Columbian Exchange not only traded food and goods, but the Spaniards also transferred fatal illnesses such as smallpox which the Native Americans were weak and unacquainted to. Overall, approximately 95% of the Native American population was wiped out as a result of the Spaniards. Fifth graders are also taught how Columbus proposed the Earth was round and his fellow Spaniards considered him crazy for believing so. The greek philosopher Pythagoras and his school are the true ones responsible for this theory and they proposed it 2000 years before Columbus was born. Conclusively, the distortions we learn of Columbus in elementary and middle school only mislead us in the future.
Evidently, learning deceptions is worse than not learning at all. Schools across the United States should cease misinforming their students about Columbus and wait until 10th grade until to mention his name when students are fully prepared to learn the whole truth. In conclusion, Christopher Columbus may have been a guilty man, but teaching deceits to doe-eyed children is a shameful act as well.