Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Resources for Columbus Day

With Columbus Day around the corner, and my e-mailing of bits of info increasing, I decided I should try to resurrect this blog. I may not be able to keep it as updated as I'd hoped, but most of the links are still current.

Columbus Day can get all of us thinking about how to talk with kids -- and ourselves -- about the genocide committed against American Indians in a developmentally appropriate way. It doesn't help that so much of the media maintains an idealized and stereotypical perspective. And, it doesn't help me that I am missing huge chunks of knowledge -- so the first step is definitely for me to educate myself more and model that for and with my kids (I'm guessing Grace knows more than I do about a lot of pieces of history now).

Here is a general resource for thinking about teaching about Native American history, avoiding the "tourism" trap.

American Indians in Children's Literature offers many fabulous suggestions for books - I'm going to get the new Louise Erdrich book for Grace and myself to read.

For resources for learning about / teaching about Maine, check out the website that was developed to support LD291, a law to teach about Maine's Native Americans.

1 comment:

Brita said...

Glad to see this blog active again! I am commenting, as usual, with some shameless self-promotion. The Born to Read program also offers a book list on this topic, on our resources page. I would also highly recommend the organization known as Oyate.