A darker Columbus emerges in classrooms

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Jeffrey Kolowith’s kindergarten students read a poem about Christopher Columbus, take a journey to the New World on three paper ships and place the explorer’s picture on a timeline through history.

Kolowith’s students learn about the explorer’s significance — though they also come away with a more nuanced picture of Columbus than the noble discoverer often portrayed in pop culture and legend.

“I talk about the situation where he didn’t even realize where he was,” Kolowith said. “And we talked about how he was very, very mean, very bossy.”

Columbus’ stature in U.S. classrooms has declined somewhat through the years, and many districts will not observe his namesake holiday today.

Although lessons vary, many teachers are trying to present a more-balanced perspective of what happened after Columbus reached the Caribbean and the suffering of indigenous populations.

“The whole terminology has changed,” said James Kracht, executive associate dean for academic affairs in the Texas A&M College of Education and Human Development. “You don’t hear people using the world discovery anymore like they used to. ‘Columbus discovers America.’ Because how could he discover America if there were already people living here?”

In Texas, students start learning in the fifth grade about the “Columbian Exchange” — which consisted not only of gold, crops and goods shipped back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean, but also diseases carried by settlers that decimated native populations.

In McDonald, Pa., 30 miles southwest of Pittsburgh, fourth-graders at Fort Cherry Elementary put Columbus on trial this year — charging him with thievery and misrepresenting the Spanish crown.

They found him guilty and sentenced him to life in prison.

“In their own verbiage, he was a bad guy,” teacher Laurie Crawford said.

Of course, the perspective given varies across classrooms and grades. Donna Sabis-Burns, a team leader with the U.S. Department of Education’s School Support and Technology Program, surveyed teachers nationwide about the Columbus reading materials they used in class for her University of Florida dissertation.

She examined 62 picture books and found the majority were outdated and contained inaccurate — and sometimes outright demeaning — depictions of the native Taino population.

The federal holiday itself also is not universally recognized. Schools in Miami, Dallas, Los Angeles and Seattle will be open; New York City, Washington and Chicago schools will be closed.

Crawford’s Pennsylvania class dressed up as characters from the era, assigned roles for a mock trial and put Columbus on the stand. Out of a jury of 12 students, nine found him guilty of the charges.

“Every hero is somebody else’s villain,” said Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, a scholar and author of several books related to Columbus, including “1492: The Year the World Began.”

“Heroism and villainy are just two sides of the same coin.”