Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen High school history textbooks are seen, by students, as presenting the last word on American History. Rarely, if ever, do they question what their text tells them about our collective past. According to James W. Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me, they should be. Loewen has spent considerable time and effort reviewing history texts that were written for high school students. In Lies, he has reviewed twenty texts and has compared them to the actual history. Sadly, not one text measures up to the author's expectation of teaching students to think. What is worse, though, is that students come away from their classes without "having developed the ability to think coherently about social life"(Lies p.4). Loewen blames this on the way that today's texts are written. This paper will compare one text, The American Pageant, to Lies. One of the biggest problems with today's texts is the process of heroification. This process turns real people, from our past, into "pious, perfect creatures without conflicts, pain, creditability, or human interest"(Lies p.9). Several examples, including the lions from our history, in Pageant include Christopher Columbus, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Woodrow Wilson. Others are defamed, like Stephen A. Douglas, and John Brown. In Pageant Christopher Columbus is one of the first people named as relevant to our history. He is built up as a hero, with words such as "a man of vision, energy, resourcefulness, and courage" used to describe him (Pageant p.4). We are told that he knows the world is round, but that nobody will believe him. Finally he convinces Spain's monarchs to fund him, and is given "three tiny but seaworthy ships manned... ... middle of paper ... ...ils to explain why this song was so popular. In this case not giving all of the facts about a historical figure is to that person's detriment. The lengths that many textbook writers go to keep our history on a positive note, and to make heroes out of many of our historical figures comes at a high cost, according to Loewen. These costs include incorrect history, and boring history. The end results are students who hate history class, and who come out of those classes not equipped to think about our past in a rational or coherent way. Bibliography: Works Cited Thomas A. Bailey and David M. Kennedy. The American Pageant, A History of the Republic. Eighth edition. D.C. Heath and Company: Lexington, Massachusetts, 1987. James W. Loewen. Lies My Teacher Told Me, Everything Your American History Teacher Got Wrong. The New Press: New York, 1995.
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Unfortunately, American history does have a habit of covering up its history for the sake of offering its younger generations a progress model. In a book titled Lies My Teacher Told Me, James Loewen shows how the progress model mode of history telling has covered up many important events in American history to the point that children in public education are graduating high school with extremely warped views of history.
James Loewen wrote the book ?Lies My Teacher Told ME? to help the students of the United States become aware of their true history. This book attempts to show how and why American history has been taught the way it has without regard for the truth. Mr. Loewen had compared twelve different history textbooks they are: The Great Republic, The American Way, Land of Promise, Rise of the American Nation, Challenge of Freedom, American Adventures, Discovering American History, The American Tradition, Life and Liberty, The United States ? A History of the Republic, Triumph of the American Nation and The American Pageant. Loewen has argued his cases for Heroification, Euorcentrism and the first settlers, and Racism in our history. He has done this knowing fully that most people do not want to know the harsh realities of our nations past. The United States has tried to maintain a positive image throughout history. Unfortunately, it has many skeletons in its closet that need to come out to heal this great nation on many levels. If the public at large new the real role of racism in our nations infancy and how men tried to pursue their way of thinking as opposed to what is good for the country they would be ashamed at what the United States has stood for in the past.
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In Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, the author, James W. Loewen attempts to acknowledge and correct or offer various possibilities of historically significant events to American history. Loewen also offers reasons why minorities typically perform the lowest in history, more so than any other school subjects. In doing so, he exposes all of the lies highlighting white protestant innovations that history textbooks use to teach American students that position minorities below whites Protestants.
Christopher Columbus is a very important person in our country’s history. He found the “New World”, the one we live in today. Christopher Columbus was a navigator, explorer and pioneer that was born October 31,1451 in Genoa, Italy. His name was Cristoforo Colombo which was translated into English to which is Christopher Columbus. Columbus is cherished as one of the head navigator of the Age of Discovery. Columbus parents were known as” Individuals that weaved and made cloth” ("Christopher Columbus: Biography of An Explorer."), but he grew up wanting to be different from his family. He admired becoming a sailor by learning how to read and understand maps at an early age. As a child, Columbus visualized about sailing boats and he knew that he wanted to sail to many places across the ocean. According to the reference, “Columbus became a sailor on the Mediterranean and the Atlantic oceans, launching himself as a chart maker ("Christopher Columbus").