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🌽 Keepunumuk: Weeâchumun's Thanksgiving Story Read Aloud Kid's Book

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Thanksgiving | National Museum of the American Indian

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The NMAI fosters a richer shared human experience through a more informed understanding of Native peoples.

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We Are Grateful | Otsaliheliga | Cherokee Language Read Along

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The Invention of Thanksgiving (grades 4-5)

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The Invention of Thanksgiving (grades 4-5)

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"What is Thanksgiving?" In this short film from the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, Comanche author, essayist, and curator Paul Chaat Smith provides an answer from a different perspective, candidly discussing the difficult lore that The Invention of Thanksgiving is built upon.

He also explores how American Indian images, names, and stories, "however imperfectly" represented in both powerful and demeaning ways, continue to be essential threads in the fabric of American history and contemporary life.

Created for the NMAI "Americans" exhibition, the thought-provoking film for educators and older learners can be supported with the museum's corresponding "Americans" Dialogue Kit for Educators [pdf] for grades 4-12.

The images are everywhere, from the Land O'Lakes butter maiden to the Cleveland Indians' mascot, and from classic Westerns and cartoons to episodes of Seinfeld and South Park. American Indian names are everywhere too, from state, city, and street names to the Tomahawk missile. And the familiar historical events of Pocahontas's life, the Trail of Tears, and the Battle of Little Bighorn remain popular reference points in everyday conversations.

" Americans " highlights the ways in which American Indians have been part of the nation's identity since before the country began. It will surround visitors with images, delve into the three stories, and invite people to begin a conversation about why this phenomenon exists.

Watch other Native American stories on TKSST:
* Amanda Crowe, Eastern Band Cherokee Indian woodcarver
* Different worlds: Wampanoag and Pilgrim women in 1620
* Chief Oshkosh and Menominee Forest conservation

via Jennifer Burgin.

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The Invention of Thanksgiving, a National Museum of the American Indian short film

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"What is Thanksgiving?" In this short film from the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, Comanche author, essayist, and curator Paul

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Two different worlds: Wampanoag and Pilgrim women in 1620

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When the Mayflower landed in November of 1620 at what’s now known as now Provincetown Harbor, Cape Cod, it arrived on the land belonging to the Wampanoag

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Please click here if you are not redirected within a few seconds.

It's a way to bring people together, not to separate us." Watch the Thanksgiving Address video first, focusing on the images while Ryan speaks in the Mohawk ...

The Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address expresses a culture of gratitude, the consciousness that the earth continually gifts us with abundance.

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thanksgiving address to the natural world video - Google Search

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Please click here if you are not redirected within a few seconds. It's a way to bring people together, not to separate us." Watch the Thanksgiving Address video first, focusing on the images while Ryan speaks in the Mohawk ... The Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address expresses a culture of gratitude, the consciousness that the earth continually gifts us with abundance.

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The Conscious Kid is an education, research and policy organization that supports families and educators in taking action to disrupt racism, inequity and bias

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School Thanksgiving activities often mean dressing children in "Indian" headdresses and paper feathers as they sing " My Country 'Tis of Thee" or " Mr. Turkey." Some teachers might even ask their students to draw themselves as Native Americans from the past, complete with feather-adorned headbands and buckskin clothing. These activities might seem friendly and fun, unless you are aware of how damaging this imagery is to perceptions of contemporary Native peoples. This imagery contributes to the indoctrination of American youth into a false narrative that relegates Indigenous peoples to the past and turns real human beings into costumes for a few days a year. It's not just bad pedagogy; it's socially irresponsible.

Native Americans have been speaking out and writing back against the colonialist narrative of Thanksgiving for as long as the American narrative has existed. More recently, comedian Jim Ruel (Ojibwe) includes Thanksgiving in his act ( starting at 1:40 in this clip), Dr. Debbie Reese (Nambe Pueblo) writes about children's books that "set the record straight," and Native American students speak out about what Thanksgiving means to them.

Doris Seale (Santee/Cree) and Beverly Slapin (Dakota/Cree/Abenaki) edited A Broken Flute in 2005, which includes a chapter that deconstructs the myths perpetuated about the first Thanksgiving. This chapter also includes critical reviews of many books on the market or readily available in libraries and classrooms. Providing ample evidence that many non-Native publishers, illustrators and writers are missing the mark in several critical ways, these books exemplify the ineffectiveness of good intentions, the perpetuation of misinformation and the exclusion of Native American voices and experiences.

Teaching about Thanksgiving in a socially responsible way means that educators accept the ethical obligation to provide students with accurate information and to reject traditions that sustain harmful stereotypes about Indigenous peoples. Thankfully, there are excellent online resources that can help educators interested in disrupting the hegemonic Thanksgiving story.

Challenging the dominant and inaccurate narrative about Thanksgiving, providing students with a more balanced perspective of this oft-romanticized holiday, and refusing to dress students in feathered headbands are socially responsible actions. They're actions that every teacher should undertake to benefit their students and the society their students will inherit.

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Teaching Thanksgiving in a Socially Responsible Way

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Educators have an ethical obligation to teach accurately about Thanksgiving. Here are some online resources that can help.

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American Indians in Children's Literature

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American Indians in Children's Literature

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American Indians in Children's Literature (AICL)

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Designed to help readers develop a critical eye about representations of American Indians in children's and young adult books