Jake Repsch

Columbus in High School

In fourteen hundered, ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. It's a catchy rhyme that helps students to learn the basics of one of the most important events in human history, unfortunately, for a lot of students this is where their education and understanding of the man known as Christopher Columbus ends. As a high school graduate, of public education, I am living proof of the poor representation of certain aspects of education that are not presented at a satisfactory level within public education. For this project, that specific aspect is the Columbian discovery of the new world. When I started taking courses at Millersville, I really had no idea how limited my view of historical events really was. Dr. Tirado's perspective course in p articular, has really opened my eyes to viewing a topic in terms of the "big picture". This was not skill that was developed to any great degree while at the high school level.

To test my thoery that high school education is lacking when it comes to teaching the Columbian discovery of the new world, I created suvey to test the knowledge of kids at my old high school, Solanco. The survey was designed to go from very gen eral knowledge questions, to questios that were somewhat more complex and required a deeper undestanding of the subject material. I aslo put two opinionated questions on the survey. I had hoped that these questions would give me some insight to the form ulated opinion that these students had of Christopher Columbus. The survey looked like this:

1) What year did Columbus set sail?
2) How many ships did he take and can you name them?
3) What ethnic background was Columbus?
4) What country's flag did he sail under?
5) What was Columbus looking for?
6) Where did Columbus first land?

A) Florida

B) somewhere in the Caribbean

C) Cuba

D) near modern day Richmond VA
7) Columbus treated the native Indians he encountered :

A) Nothing but the utmost respect.

B) Spit on them and raped their women.

C) Saw them as potential slaves to be traded.

D) Just left them alone.
8) How many trips to the new world did Columbus make?
9) On which of those trips did he finally admitt he was on a new continent?

A) his first

B) his second

C) his ninth

D) he never did
10) T or F: Columbus was well prepared for his trip across the Atlantic.
11) T or F: His crew nearly turned on him.
12) T or F: His route to the new world was so accurate, it is still used today.
13) T or F; Although Columbus is a very important historical figure, little is known about the man.
14) T or F: Columbus was one of few people he knew the world was round.
15) On a scale from one to ten, with ten being the most important, and one being not very important at all, please rank the discovery of the new world by Columbus.
16) In your opinion, was Columbus a "good " guy or a "bad" guy and explain why you feel this way.

The results from my survey seem to support my hypothesis that the education provided on the discovery of the new world by Columbus is certainly lacking. My survey was taken by two classes of tenth and eleventh grade students, with some interesti ng results. Almost everyone could name the year and how many ships Columbus used, but after the first two questions, the results really tail off. A total 45 students took the survey and on a question like number three, (what ethnic background was Colum bus) only 9 students had the correct answer. Compare that figure to the 27 students that answered correctly, what flag did Columbus sail under, and it is obvious that a simple lack of detail to the subject matter has occured.

I'm not trying to say that high school students should be expected to think on the same level of understanding as those of us in college. But these questions were simple memory answers about one of the most important events in human history, tha t a low pecentage of the students were able to answer; not some deep level question that required some kind of philosophical reasoning.

One of the most interesting results came on question number seven. Only 12 students answered the question correctly, and 15 of those who answered incorrectly, said that Columbus treated the Indians with nothing but the utmost respect. 10 more s tudents answered that he simply left the Indians alone. This shows a pattern. Obviously, these students feel that Columbus was above treating the Indians unfairly. In fact I had several students who said in their opinion statements that Columbus was a good guy because of his fair and just treatment of the Native Americans. If this were not enough to convince you, I offer question number 11. The lowest scoring question on the survey with only 5 correct answers, was the true or false question that aske d did Columbus' crew turn on him. The survey concludes that 40 out of 45 students believe what is an outright lie.

Why is it that these lies and myths are allowed to be continuously to be taught in our public education system? One explanation is to continue the view that Columbus is some kind of hero. However, I say that we should simply present all the pos sible information, and allow the kids to form their own opinions. This happens anyway, as I found out in the opinion answers on my survey. The reviews were mixed for Columbus the man. However, many of the students who thought that he was a good guy, al so thought he was fair and just to the Indians. Perhaps if they were informed better on the overall picture of the discovery of the new world, their opinion might change.

To research the possiblity that students could broaden their own horizion's, I went to the first place high school students look for information; the high school library. This was also a disappointment. I found four books on Columbus, only one of which had been written after the sixties. There were also about ten books on the age of discovey, but some of these don't hardly mention Columbus. Once again the educational system has failed to provide the proper resouces to its students.

Granted, my survey was a small scale test on a limited environment, that isn't conlusive evidence to prove anything beyond doubt. However the results show what they show, and within these guidelines, there is a serious lack of knowledge with the educational system I tested. The arguement over education can be viewed from several perspectives. It is not my intention to offer a solution to this arguement. Rather, to show simply that problems do exist, and without steps to correct these problems, the resolution will be ignorance