How many of you still do the old "Pilgrims" and "Indians" thing (the paper bag vests, the headbands, etc.)? I'm asking because it sounds like my team wants to do something like this but I know that it is kind of considered outdated and insensitive to have the kiddos dress up in Native American costumes. When I taught preschool we were not even allowed to do this, but my public elementary school seems to leave it up to the teacher.
I stay away from having my kids dress up as either. We will however make an art project based on each. I will have them use color paper to make an Indian and then also one as Pilgrim. I will probably make tracers of the heads and a few other basic shapes. Then I will let me kids go at it! I also make an example and expect a few certain things in their art projects. But then I give them some freedom (my goal for my masters degree class this quarter. The students will then write a few things that they learned about each. This allows them to still see and understand their clothing, etc. Could you possible have them do something similar instead of having them dress up?
My team still does it. We have k,1, and 2 on our team. The kindergartners dress up as indians with the paper vests and the indian symbols. The first grade and second grade dress up as pilgrims. Each class makes something together and then we all eat together.
I am fairly new to k, but this team has always done this.
Our K, 1st, and 2nd grades combine for a feast. We go to 3 differents centers (rooms) for crafts/activities and then combine for a simple feast in the lunchroom. We try to sensitive to the story of Thanksgiving and Native Americans. One of the centers is storytelling and we share Native American stories. The oral tradition of Native Americans is well worth sharing. I struggle with the dressing up and constantly remind the children/staff of the wonderful history of Native Americans.
Since we sing a lot about turkeys and do the Turkey Tango for the parents, I have the kids make turkey hats to wear. They look cute and colorful and go with all of the songs.
controversy is all about. This is a very important part of our history. We do the whole Pilgrims and Native American thing. We make native American costumes (although we don't know exactly what they wore it gives the children some ideas) and we do Pilgrim outfits. The kids get to choose what to wear. We teach them why they were called Indians and why we now call them Native Americans. We teach them about the Pilgrims, how they came here and why. We teach them about friendship and how the Native Americans came and helped and rescued the Pilgrims. Since my ancestors were among the first to come to this country in 1607 (yes, Jamestown) and more with the Winthrop Company in 1630, I feel sad that we don't feel it is important to teach our children about their determination to live in this land. How sad we have become so sensitive and politically correct that we have become insensitive to what our forefathers did in our behalf and we fail to teach our heritage and history to the children! History is not all about a rosy picture but history is true stories of what happened in our land and others. By the way, I am part Native American too-and I take no offense to children dressing up as such and sharing a meal with the pilgrims like my ancestors did.
Linn - I agree with what you are saying about the importance of the history the Pilgrims etc.
My issue is not with the feast or with anything involving the Pilgrims. My issue is with dressing my students up in "Indian" type costumes. The problem is that it perpetuates a stereotype of Native Americans and today's Native Americans do not walk around with feathers in their headbands. I know that many Native American people do not appreciate it b/c they live and work in the community just like other ethnicities and they look and dress like typical Americans. I like teaching about the Native American culture and making Native American inspired crafts, but having the kids in the headbands and feathers and outfits and having them tap their mouth and make the "Indian" sound is what I think is being considered now stereotyping.
I completely understand about teaching the struggle of Americans in our history and I teach those struggles. Also, Linn, it seems like you are being very sensitive and teaching the kids the difference between then and now. I just don't want to offend anyone and I want to be sure that I'm not passing on stereotypes to my little kiddos.
Last edited by GoldiTeaches; 11-08-2009 at 02:48 PM..
Reason: wanted to add something.
with saying that dressing up children in headband and vests, etc. is "stereotyping" our Native Americans. They DID dress like that in many tribes. We do not dress like the pilgrims today and yet we allow the children to dress like that because that WAS the dress of that day.
We do not know exactly what the Massasoit Native Americans dressed like or exactly what the Pilgrims wore when the arrived here. We can guess that because they lived where it was cold that they probably had hides from animals to keep them warm. We are merely having the children dress in attire that may have been typical of that day. If you simply state that we believe this is close to what the Native Americans and Pilgrims wore and we are only pretending to be them, I think the children enjoy it.
I remember dressing as a Native American as a child and I felt proud of their heritage. I have studied many of the tribes and of course they all dressed a little differently depending on where they lived and what resources they had to make their clothing.
I think if we teach the children about these wonderful Native Americans that took such good care of this country and about their helpfulness to the pilgrims we are doing a great deal to teach tolerance, gratefulness, and love. Not teaching this for the sake of being politically correct is ignoring that these different people lived together (no matter what they wore) and helped each other during a very important period of our country's history.
So I suppose one must choose: be politically correct and ignore what has happened in our country or teach history to the best of our ability.
This is a great way to discuss Then vs. Now, which I am in the middle of discussing. We talk about how people didn't have cameras, video camera, or cell phone cameras to take pictures like we do today. So of course, we don't know exactly what people dressed like. I did show the students different pictures of various tribes and their costumes. I have several Native American students in my class. Their tribes have Indian Casinos, and they also have cultural centers. Like the PP, I point out that they are not wearing that type of clothing to school, because times have changed. I always ask families if there is something special they can share from their heritage with my classes.
By the way, when we talked about Columbus in October, we talked about how Columbus thought he was in India, so he mistakingly called the people he saw "Indians". So when we talk about Thanksgiving, we tell students that even though the name is incorrect, it sort of stuck. We mistakingly called Native Americans "Indians" for so many years that we have to work hard to correct ourselves to make sure we show respect.
I thought your post was excellent! This is exactly the way I teach this to my students. I prefer to teach the truth (as far as we know it correctly) than to ignore it.
I also taught my students why we called them "Indians" and that now we call them Native Americans. They understood all this and I think we will have a wonderful Thanksgiving feast together dressed as Native Americans and Pilgrims and teach them the friendship that developed between them. I also hope they will gain a lot of respect to our Native Americans who quite literally saved our Pilgrims from starvation. I know I am grateful to them and I will not ignore or not acknowledge their great contribution to our country's early beginning.
Last edited by Linn; 11-08-2009 at 06:57 PM..
Reason: correction
-Sigh- My intention was not to start a debate. What I said about the costumes and stereotyping is believed by many teachers who no longer have the kids dress up. The preschool I taught at for years did not allow us to do the whole costume thing for that reason. I was asking, now that I work in the school system, who still does it and who doesn't. As I said earlier to Linn, it seems as though you are certainly going about it the right way, teaching the kids the difference between Native Americans then and now. I did not mean to insult you and if for some reason you felt that you had to be defensive about how you teach Thanksgiving, I apologize. I was just trying to see what different teachers were doing. Please do understand that there are some Native American people that are offended by this type of thing, including a family at my school. This is why I asked the question in the first place. Thank you for all the different opinions!
But I do teach about Native American studies. As part of this unit we learn how NA used animal skins for clothing and plants and rock dust for dyes. I then have childrn bring in pillow cases from home and I cut a v in the top and then snip off the two top conters so they have an animals skin sheath. They then draw Native american symbols to tell a story on their animal skins and they can ear their art work.
I've been doing turkey hats for years...the paper vests/pilgrim hats art project took up too much time. I still teach them about Thanksgiving but as far as a "project" I think that turkeys are a good compromise
11-07-2009, 03:42 PM
. The students will then write a few things that they learned about each. This allows them to still see and understand their clothing, etc. Could you possible have them do something similar instead of having them dress up?
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