Give them the world: teach students our nation’s true history

When I was a little girl, I was nourished with healthy food, clean drinking water, safe housing, access to education, adequate medical care, and the loving support of family and friends. As a result, I became an idealist, a perpetual optimist, a lover of people, and a dreamer. It seemed that the world was a magical place where anything was possible.

In public school, my teachers disguised the truth about the world as it really existed, reinforcing my rosy worldview. While I did learn about wars, which offended my optimism, I was taught that they were a necessary evil, and that good always wins over evil. For example, I learned that the New World’s colonists fought off the “bad Native Americans.” My teachers didn’t tell me that the Indigenous populations were decimated by colonial governments committing genocide.