I can imagine that raising children who go to school in Ithaca is very difficult. John Derbyshire shares your pain:
Hey hey, ho ho... American schools, of course, are still sticking firmly to the Noble Savage myth. Conversation with Nellie Muriel (age 10) over the dinner table the other night. I was testing her knowledge of dates. 1492 drew a blank. JD: "Oh, come on, Nellie. 1492 — Christopher Columbus — remember?" NM: "Oh yeah. Columbus — he was a bad guy." JD: "Say what? If he was a bad guy, how come we have a public holiday named after him?" NM: "Well, that's because he started out good. He discovered America. Fine. But then he got bad. He made people slaves." JD: "Honey, up to a couple hundred years ago, everybody had slaves. India, Africa, China, Europe, the Arabs — we all had slaves. It wasn't unusual." NM: "Uh-uh. Columbus bad. He shouldn't have come here." JD: "But if he hadn't come here, there'd be nobody in America but Indians. And they had slaves. Also human sacrifice, perpetual warfare, famines, diseases and stuff." NM: "No. They were peaceful. They had democracy." JD: (Speechless.) This is a kid raised in a conservative household. We watch nothing but Fox TV, I swear.