i just have to get this out like omg the weight of this is actually crushing me. so i’m a history major right and i’m also like a TA for this intro to american history class and i teach a few sections of it every week. and the curriculum is like SUPER strict, it’s all state-mandated textbook stuff, you HAVE to cover x y and z topics exactly as they’re presented. and like from an academic standpoint i get it, consistency and all that. but the textbook we use for the colonial period? it’s like... a joke. no actually it’s literally gaslighting. it frames everything as like, brave explorers and westward expansion and all this 'civilizing' stuff and completely glosses over the actual, like, HORRIBLE things that happened. it makes me sick every time i have to stand up there and read the passages out loud to these freshmen like it’s gospel. and the worst part is i know it’s wrong. i’ve taken all these other classes, i’ve read all the actual historical sources, i know how truly messed up it was. the indigenous perspectives are just... gone. erased. and i have to stand there and teach this whitewashed version with a straight face and pretend it’s the truth because if i deviate i could get in serious trouble. my professor is super old school and watches us like a hawk. it’s like my whole academic life i’m being told to think critically, to question everything, but then in this one specific context i have to turn off my brain and just parrot what the state wants. sometimes i just want to scream during class and be like "GUYS, THIS IS NOT WHAT HAPPENED. THIS IS BS." but i can’t. i just smile and keep talking about some 'heroic' pioneer. it’s so twisted sometimes i just want to laugh bc it’s so absurd. i think about it constantly, like when i’m trying to write my own papers, or even just hanging out with friends. it’s always there, this huge secret i’m keeping from my students. i feel like such a hypocrite. like i’m teaching them to be good students and learn facts but the facts i’m giving them are fundamentally incomplete and misleading. it's like i'm part of the problem i'm trying to fight against in my own studies. and then i think, okay, i need this TA gig for grad school apps, i need the money, i need the experience. so i just keep doing it. just keep reading the words that make my stomach clench. idk what to do, like, when does it stop being okay to compromise your integrity for your future. am i already too far gone... i just don’t want to be that kind of person.