Dyslexic Abe Lincoln, Emo Chris Columbus, Bigot Thanksgiving, and the Filters We Put on History

I have learned much of history that I didn't know from my children. 

Emo Chris Columbus
Bruce, 3rd Grade

For instance, Christopher Columbus was a sad, little hipster man. Bruce taught me that one a few years ago via on of my most treasured Kid Art Masterpieces: Emo Chris Columbus. Just look at those sideburns. The right one might even be a man-bun, escaping from a hat that might once have been sharply befitting a ship's captain, but has, perhaps through ennui, slouched ironically into a sort of limp ferret. His eyes are round and full of tears. Perhaps, as a friend once suggested, he has the feels about that whole genocide thing. You can almost see him shrugging his shoulders: not that he wanted all that gold anyway, because Emo Chris is clearly not that kind of dude (his suit is definitely Salvation Army and might even be a rather threadbare velvet) but the fact that the gold wasn't there was just some sort of commentary on wealth and how it wasn't fairly distributed and also how advertising sucks.

Dyslexic Abe Lincoln
Betty, 3rd Grade

I also learned a bit about Abraham Lincoln this week, courtesy of Betty's third grade spring research project. He stored papers in his hat to keep them dry, which may explain why it looks a little rumpled and bulgy. He also may be a Twinkie, unless the white stripe is a vague tie or he got splinched in a very bad apparition accident. Also, I am more impressed than ever that he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, given his lack of arms. He also proves conclusively that Emo Chris is a wimp, because his sideburns are so masterful that they grow into his beard, forming a giant happy smile of facial hair. Take that, Emo Chris! You may have led the Spanish to North America, but you just got schooled on sideburns. Bam!

The most adorable thing about Honest Abe, however, is that he, like my beautiful daughter, appears to be seeing the world in a unique way. Note that Dyslexic Abe is standing in front of a intricately drawn--yet backwards--American flag. I told her he was just standing on the other side of it, but Betty insisted on redrawing it. Strangely enough, the version with the forward facing flag was less detailed, the stars becoming fuzzy dots swirled in a tangled blue net and the pole on the wrong side of the flag. I much prefer Dyslexic Abe, his smile is more genuine and kind. You can tell from the Charlie Brown arch to his eyebrows that he is happy to have freed the slaves and ended the war. He looks like a great guy to sit down with on the White House lawn and feed the birds. Arms are over-rated anyway.

I've learned a few historical facts from the kids' elementary school that were considerably less profound, we'll call them 'alternative facts.' The kids' father and I celebrated that November 2015 was the final year for Bigot Thanksgiving, which was becoming more cringey by the child. Bigot Thanksgiving is a frankly horrible Reader's Theater play that our school does every year with second graders. It was...unsettling...when Eleanor was in second grade. It was that kind of creepy-funny where you're embarrassed at that one time you chuckled during the performance when Bruce was in second grade. It was just wrong, wrong, DO YOU KNOW WHAT YEAR IT IS, ROUND ROCK???? wrong when Betty was in second grade.

Are you ready to enjoy Bigot Thanksgiving? Are you sure? Well, in this magical world, three girls are Pilgrim Women, three boys are Pilgrim Men, three girls are Indian Women (yes, of course they're called 'Indian'...this is Bigot Thanksgiving, silly!), three boys are Indian Men, there's the Preacher (a boy, all three times), and the remainder of the kids are Corn or Turkeys. The teacher reads a story of the First Bigot Thanksgiving, and when she says their character, the kids respond in what is presumed to be their character:

• Pilgrim Men: Bang! Bang! (Are we really equating masculinity with firearms in the second grade?)
• Pilgrim Women: <get ready for it....> Mercy me! (Complete with dramatic sigh and backward hand to the forehead, because, you know, women are such delicate, dramatic little creatures, particularly the ones who uproot from their home country, cross months of stormy seas and battle famine and unending labor in the wilderness. But yes, MERCY ME!)
• Indian Men: Big and brave! (Which is not, technically, something they would say, so much as an overgeneralized stereotype that seems to come out of a really cheesy Western, but, whatevs.)
• Indian Women: <there's no getting ready for this one, sorry> Shhhh! (Complete with finger to the lips, because, as we have seen on the Senate floor, the only good woman is a quiet one.)
• Preacher: Praise the Lord! (We'll just ignore the whole church-and-state thing, as well as the fact that the elementary school in question is quite diverse and many of the children are of other faiths. We'll also ignore the tendency to cast the preacher as a boy, mainly because I already wrote this particular school regarding their sexist end-of-year awards a long time ago.)
• Corn: Pop! Pop! (Did they seriously pop the corn at the first Thanksgiving? I am skeptical. And why corn? Before you suggest that they didn't want to embarrass a child by having them wear a potato hat, I'd like to point out that my middle child was Clyde the Dancing Cockroach in the end-of-year play. Child dignity is not necessarily a priority.)
• Turkeys: Gobble! Gobble! (Okay, fine, except that at the very end, everyone, including the corn and turkeys, says, "YUM! YUM!" all together, which has some rather disturbing cannibalistic overtones if you think about it too hard, which you tend to do by the third child.)

So there you have it, history in elementary school. Personally, I prefer Emo Chris, who is unafraid of his emotions and may have learned some valuable life lessons along the way, and Dyslexic Abe, smiling, warm, and unfazed by his backwards flag and lack of arms, to the starched white and saccharine identity boundaries of Bigot Thanksgiving. In the real world, we soldier on through difficulties and learn from our mistakes. In the real world, we are not defined by two-word labels. In the real world, women and people of color don't have to be silent. And that is something to be thankful for.