What my VIPS students are learning about Thanksgiving

While I was tutoring at my school on Friday, my teacher asked me to staple the children's reading/writing homework together. This week the assignment is for them to read a story about Thanksgiving then write about it. I thought everyone might be interested to see what exactly they are teaching about Thanksgiving in some first grade classes. I took pictures of the assignment when the teacher and students stepped out of the room.


So the students are taught the cute little story about the Pilgrims and the Indians becoming friends and sitting down together to have a nice feast celebrating their friendship. What I found worse was the writing assignment that followed.

If you can't see what it says, it says "Please read the nonfiction Thanksgiving book. Then write in a sentence a fact of something you learned. Nonfiction books are books with real/true information. Facts are information that are true." The students are being told that this is the true to life story and then are being asked to reflect upon this story further reinforcing that this is what actually happened.

When I was in elementary school I learned the same cutesy story and we ran around dressed as Pilgrims and Indians. This is me, some of my classmates, and my cousin in kindergarten around Thanksgiving at school: (sorry so blurry)

I don't think I learned about the truth of Thanksgiving until high school.