Educators amend Columbus Day lessons in schools

Columbus Day is one of only 10 federal holidays, and in most schools across the country, it’s recognized as a celebration of the man who discovered America. For many Americans, Christopher Columbus is a hero.

But in recent years, educators, politicians and scholars have argued that the conventional teaching of the holiday offers a lionizing myth of Columbus, and that students should be made aware of the uglier truths that followed his arrival in the Americas.

We talk with Bob Peterson, co-author and editor of “Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years,” as well as a fifth grade teacher at La Escuela Fratney in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We also talk with Scott Richard Lyons, director of Native American Studies at Syracuse University. He recently authored the book, “X-Marks: Native Signatures of Assent.”