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The Washington Post
Don’t they know Columbus never landed in
America?
Third-graders found error in their workbook. Here’s what they did about
it.
By Valerie Strauss
April 11
Third-grade students at a school in New York were using a workbook
created by an international publishing company when they noticed that
it had incorrect information about Christopher Columbus.
The Math in Focus workbook said in a math problem that Columbus landed
in America in 1492. The students at Valleyview Elementary School in
Oneonta knew that wasn’t true — and they wanted the publisher to fix
the error.
It took months — and an online petition, in which the students wrote,
“We think they are ignoring us because we are kids” — but the students
won.
Historians say that Columbus never set foot on the North American
continent, although he did explore the coasts of South and North
America. He also landed on several Caribbean islands now called the
Bahamas, as well as on an island now known as Hispaniola. Historians
also think the Norse explorer Leif Erickson reached Canada as many as
500 years before Columbus was even born.
Math in Focus is a math curriculum from Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt/Marshall Cavendish Education. A spokesman for the company said
in a statement,
"Although it took longer than we would have liked for the students to
receive a response, we are pleased with the outcome and happy to see
the class so engaged in the curriculum.”
The students, along with their teacher, Ken Sider, said in the petition
that they sent a letter to the publisher asking for a correction, but
received only a form letter. Another letter sent to the publisher was
answered with another form letter, they said, and a third missive from
the students went unanswered.
After five months of waiting, the students and Sider wrote a petition
and published it on Change.org. In little time, more than 1,000 people
signed it. Here it is:
"We are third graders from Valleyview Elementary School in Oneonta, New
York. We have a problem that we want to tell you about.
"When we were using our Math in Focus workbook, we noticed page 52 had
incorrect information. There was a math problem that said Columbus was
in America in 1492. (We have proof.) We know that is not true. Columbus
was never in America. The Marshall Cavendish Education company is
teaching thousands of kids the wrong information. We want them to fix
it, but they are ignoring us. We sent them a letter on October 10,
2018, and they sent us a form letter back that said: “Our
representative will be reviewing your request and sending you a
response within 2 working days.” When we didn’t hear from them, we
wrote again on November 6, 2018, to remind them. They sent another form
letter that said: “We have since forwarded your class’s letter to the
relevant team. We will urge the relevant team to respond to you and
your class.” We wrote again on November 28, and told them they are
putting false information in their book and that we want to hear from
them. We offered to fix the page for them and asked them to please
answer us. They still have not answered us. We have been waiting for
five months. We think they are ignoring us because we are kids.
"Kids deserve to know the truth about history and Columbus. Adults who
make books for kids should know the facts and get them right. On the
cover of the Math in Focus workbook, it says Marshall Cavendish
Education is a “world class program” and a “consistent top performer in
international studies.” We can’t believe this is right because of the
mistake on page 52. Don’t they know Columbus never landed in America?
"We want Marshall Cavendish Education to fix the mistake! We hope you
will help us get this mistake fixed. Please sign our petition if you
agree with us. Thank you.
"Sincerely,
"The Valleyview Third Graders"
They added the names of scholars and professors to the end of the
petition to show support from historians.
On April 2, Sider published a note on the petition saying that the
publisher had agreed to make the change. He wrote:
Apr 2, 2019 — On April 2, we received a letter from Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt/Marshall Cavendish Education. They saw our petition at
change.org and wrote to us. Their letter said that people can use the
words " the Americas" and “America” in different ways, but since
Columbus never landed in the United States of America they agreed to
change the textbook. The letter says they will “adjust the language for
clarity” and the new page will say: “Christopher Columbus landed in the
Caribbean in the year 1492.” We are surprised that they are changing
it, but we are very happy. Now other kids will know the true facts of
history. Thank you for helping and supporting us. We hope you are
happy, too.
The Daily Star quoted third-grader Ian MacLeod saying he was surprised
that the students won.
“I always knew that kids could do big things, but now I know that it’s
officially true because we exceeded our goal to change the math book,”
he said.
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