> propagandize children this is a big part of it. there is a vested interest in having a national creation myth in order to tie all citizens together through history, even the newcomers. another reason is that small children (under 10ish) are information sponges and while they readily suck up facts, they rarely understand abstracts. so getting into the nitty gritty of history is a wasted effort.  in my case, as a highschool teacher, there are time constraints. us history is generally split into two years, colonial days to the civil war, then the civil war through the modern era. in each of those courses i have over 100 content standards i need to meet. by content standard i mean the people and places of history and not the using of maps or report writing. within each content standard there are usually multiple people or places which need to be covered. so the standard isnt learn about columbus its know all the explorers. so each standard, if i could run them, would have biographies on up to a dozen different historical figures. now remember, there are over 100 standards, there arent 100 teaching days in a school year. theres just not enough time to cover everything.  another reason is lack of background. my first year teaching i timed it out so i would hit on columbus, on columbus day. and every single student asked who columbus was. they had zero background information.  yet another reason is lack of caring from the students. they just dont give a shit. they have 6-8 other classes they need to take that day in order to graduate. high schoolers can be pretty blunt about it just tell us what we need to know to pass the final. id love to have an in depth discussion with my students about columbus interactions with the taino people. but i dont have time and 99% of them dont give a shit. so, in fourteen hundred and ninety two
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