One of my college students once asked me why we don’t get a holiday for Columbus Day–in community college, mind you.
Why is there a Columbus Day at all anymore? Do they still take it as a holiday in K-12?
Training for when you grow up and start voting.
Generally it is inertia and pressure from the Italian-American community. Every time in the past that someone has suggested doing away with Columbus Day, the newspapers and politician’s offices are flooded with letters and phone calls. Add to that the fact that everybody likes a day off, and there isn’t another holiday in October, and it looks like Columbus Day will be around for awhile. 
And yes, a number of public schools take it off. We get a holiday somewhere in there in my district, but it is a “floater.”
[Maureen Lipman]You get an Ology, you’re a scientist![/ML]
Clarify for the humour impaired - are you actually being serious?
My sister, who was in community college at the time, got Columbus Day off last year while I, who am in a four-year university, did not.
I seem to remember getting it off when I was in high school, but I can’t say for sure.
This one interests me a lot, but I didn’t find on your ‘cite’ the number of people alive now. Or did I miss it? Or does anyone know? Thanks.
With history, in particular, the enormous problem of simplification rears its head. World history teachers in high school are suppossed to cover the history of the entire world, from Summer to 9/11, in 36 weeks. You have to simplify–the only other choice is not to teach it at all. The only thing a good teacher can do is try to make the class aware of the fact that they are simplifying, drop in the occasional “alternate” theory as an illustration of the fact that valid alternate theories can and do exisit, and try not to tell any outright lies. But, let’s face it, you’ve got a week to teach the entire Age of Discovery, it’s hard to get more complecated than “Columbus-discovered-America-but-never-believed-it-was-not-the-Indies-but-everyone-else-figured-it-out-pretty-fast”
We got it off in grade school, only it was called Indigenous People’s Day, and it went along with lessons about how the Europeans oppressed the native peoples and such. What the hey, a day off’s a day off.
Try here for a nifty live update of the world population. If you don’t have a Java virtual machine installed, I’ll spoil it for you; about 6.5 billion.
It’s still a reassuringly large proportion of people who have ever been alive, I reckon. Seeing as everyone reckons I’m going to die eventually, 5-10% odds of survival are a big improvement. 
The US government claims it’s 6,388,173,346. But keep in mind that these are the same people paying teachers to spread all this crap.
Well, Snopes argues that none of those men should be considered Presidents of the United States. Thus, I think it’s fair to say that this is a matter of debate.
I got it off all through school, including college. New York state(where I grew up) even has a Columbus Day parade.
I was shocked one year to discover the dentist was open on Columbus Day, though very grateful as I had a infection due to surgery.
Pointless aside:
referring to “Mathematics and Civilization” p94
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0486246744/103-1211388-4221456?v=glance
The Greeks had two estimates of the size of the earth. The more accurate used the noonday sun, the less accurate used the position of a star on the horizon. Unfortunately, atmospheric refraction made the horizon based measurement about 25% low, and that’s what Columbus used.
Interesting book. Many examples of how we underestimate the abilities of the ancients.
A day off, for whatever reason, is a thing of joy! It’s one less day when I have to get up early and go into work. Especially when it’s a floating holiday that tends to be observed on a Monday. What’s not to like about a three-day weekend?
If memory serves “hard” scientists can be just as pig headed. Recent examples like the proving out of Heliobacter, prions etc, where many hard scientists took it on close minded faith in the existing paradigm, that these paradigms shifting discoveries and the theorists promoting them were full of bunk until the evidence became unassailable. Willfull, stubborn ignorance is hardly the exclusive reserve of the softer sciences.
I remember hearing all about the happy pilgrims and the friendly indians when I was in grade school. When my son had the same lessons last year, he came home literally in tears because of all the horrible things the pilgrims did to the Indians (genocide, scalping, smallpox, etc.). He was actually made to feel guilty for being a white male - at 10 years old!
Now, being no scholar of the history of early European settlement of North America, I don’t really know what to tell him, except that I’m guessing the truth lies somewhere between the two versions.
Also last year, we went to a historical site in Nag’s Head, North Carolina, home of some lost colony. We were told that there was a short movie depicting the early settlers - told from the point of view of the Native American’s from the area. I was really excited, until WhyBoy sighed and moaned, “It’s ALWAYS told from their point of view!” Gave me quite a perspective shift to realize that the schools and museums may have gone too far in the other direction.
Nah, it’s the book. He spends the whole book debunking a half dozen things–what a snooze! And he is annoyingly liberal, and I’m speaking as a liberal. Nope, a better writer could do a page or two on each untruth we were taught either in school or real life and have enough material for a whole series.
I think i was lucky, because when I attended school, some of the myths I was told in grades K-5 were starting to get debunked in 6th grade, and a LOT of debunking happened in junioh high and high school.
Oh, and I never had Columbus Day off until I went to college. I’m not sure if it was a statewide thing, or just my community. (FTR, I went to school in VT, and college in NY)
This always boils my blood. There are so many sites that do this: Abe Lincoln’s log cabin springs immediately to mind. Not too far from my home is a fort. If you didn’t pay close enough attention, you’d believe that this was the original fort from the late 1700s. But no, it’s a recreation of a completely vanished fort which was actually miles from the cite on which the replica stands.
At the museum in which I work, the docents (or tour guides, if you prefer) take their responsibilities very seriously. We spend hours in research every week and are constantly updating our tour narration to cover any new discoveries or correct discrepancies.
What’s frustrating to me is when school groups come in, and I overhear the teacher telling his/her students something that is completely incorrect. Then I have the dillema: do I call the teacher aside and let them know they were wrong, hoping they will tell the students they were mistaken, or do I say, “Well, actually, kids, this is what happened . . . .”
I generally opt for the latter, trying to be as tactful as possible and not offend the teacher by showing them up in front of their students. We have to do this, because sometimes kids will tell their parents, “I heard [this] at the musem” neglecting to mention, or simply forgetting that it was the teacher who related this information. It gives us a bad image if people think we’re spreading historical urban legends as fact.
Not that I mind a day off, but what the…You mean people got this day off in college and university too?? We NEVER did around here.
Rip-off! Maybe I should take a bunch of sick days all at once to make up for all those lost “holidays.”
Parents: do the schools still make you take your kids to a mission so they can build one for a project? It happens a lot here. I wonder if any kid has yet built a mission model portraying anything other than the harmonious Natives and Europeans.