Fall Break is one day off from school. This is hardly a break, and for some, it is not even a break. I’ve never encountered anyone who has had a business class on a Friday after freshman year. I’ve also never met anyone who didn’t try to schedule as few classes as possible on Friday, many with great success. For these people, Fall Break is not a break. It is a Friday. I myself only have one class and a subsection on Fridays, and while I was certainly glad for the break, I couldn’t help but think that it could have worked out better.

There are many ways to give everyone a better Fall Break experience. The most obvious is to add another day or two to the break. We have the extra days. Shutting down classes for another day or two will not bring Washington University under the limit for accreditation. It will, however, allow everyone to benefit from the vacation’s presence and encourage more people to travel away from campus.

Washington University is a great place. It is beautiful here; the environment is everything I could ask for and more. My best friends are here. All that being said, it is only natural to want to get away every now and then. But it is hard to go anywhere. Plane tickets are expensive, and air travel can be a hassle. And a weekend is not long enough to travel anywhere significantly far. When you only have two days, who wants to spend more than two or three hours, at most, traveling? You would spend more time getting where you were going than actually being there.

Fall Break helps this problem, but does not solve it. While adding an extra day gives us that much more time to be where we travel, longer trips are still inconvenient. Another day or two would free us to go even further or do more wherever we go. Those philanthropically minded would be able to do more good, help more people. Air travel would become more reasonable because of the amount of time between the flights.

If, however, adding more days to Fall Break is not appealing, there is another way that everyone can be allowed to experience the time off. If Fall Break were any day other than a Friday, the large number of people who have free Fridays anyway would also be able to reap the benefits. And, since Fall Break generally falls in the week before, after, or even the very same week as Columbus Day–a day which many other colleges and universities have off from classes–a simple switch would be easy.

Fall Break is a good thing. It can easily be made better and I see no reason why we would not want to do so.

I recall the song I learned in elementary school: “In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue…” While I am sure that there are many variations taught in schools across the country, I am also certain that most continue with sickly sweet honey-glossed lyrics that drip with rotten, glazed-over historical half-truths, to be generous. Some of the verses I learned are as follows:

“Indians! Indians! Columbus cried; his heart was filled with joyful pride.”

“He made the trip again and again, trading gold to bring to Spain.”

“The first American? No, not quite. But Columbus was brave, and he was bright.”

It would be more apt if these lyrics were changed to:

“Indians! Indians! Columbus cried; let’s sell them into slavery and begin a genocide.”

“He made the trip again and again, seizing many innocents to bring to Spain.”

“The first American? No, not quite. But Columbus thought the land of others was his right.”

As more historical truths about Columbus’s journeys to the Americas continue to be uncovered, it has become all too clear that the explorer wasn’t as “brave and bright” as a generic version of the history taught at American schools and the federal holiday named in his honor might make him out to be. I wonder: Is it right to continue to venerate this 15th-century Italian whose explorations of the West Indies led to the enslavement and decimation of indigenous populations through brutality, violence and disease? To me, it is not, especially when we examine those American heroes who are also honored with national days of remembrance: veterans, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Over 500 years later, we as a society can no longer continue to glaze over the wildfire of negative ramifications spurned by Columbus’ exploration of the West Indies (and subsequent European forays into the western hemisphere). It seems odd that the government recognizes Columbus as a hero when history testifies otherwise. Why does America, whose history is rich with dozens of heroes who have advocated for freedom, justice and equality, still choose to honor the memory of a lost 15th-century explorer whose journey resulted in ideas and actions that were anything but free, just and equal?

Kemi is a freshman in Arts & Sciences. She can be reached via e-mail at imekkemi@gmail.com.