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Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen James W. Loewen, in my opinion, makes a very valid argument in Lies My Teacher Told Me. He argues that teaching (of history) today relies too much on the textbooks which glorify the United States and its imperfect leaders and heroes. His examples, in fact, are very surprising to those most unfamiliar, or deceived, in their understanding of American History and are painfully obvious to those fairly educated in the events of our nations past. Personally, I agree with Loewen's statements and find his points to be deserving of merit, myself having been taught from various sources other than text books and already informed of some of the incidents he refers to. Though some wonderful and some ghastly, Lies My Teacher Told Me includes ten chapters of amazing stories in American history.
Arranged in roughly chronological order, these chapters do not relate mere details but events and processes with important consequences. Since the book is about the truth about events that are well-known in history, it is non-fiction and there is no set setting. It begins with the early 1900 s when Helen Keller was a radical socialist and Woodrow Wilson was a white supremacist. It then moves back in time to the late 1400 s, early 1500 s, when Columbus supposedly discovered America, when in truth the Africans did. Next, it moves on to the early 1600 s to when the Pilgrims arrived in Massachusetts and had the First Thanksgiving. Next, the book jumps to the mid 1700 s to early 1800 s to tell about the Native Americans and their struggle with Whites for their ancestral land.
This leads to the mid and late 1800 s, when slavery was a key issue and people like John Brown and Abraham Lincoln were alive. The book ends in the 1900 s, explaining how social class affects everyone and also about the Vietnam War. Loewen provides the reader with an introduction to the book, explaining the reason why he wrote this book. He explains to us his thesis about how history textbooks alter what really happened and even sometimes make up inaccurate detail to make the story or even sound better. His last two chapters of the book uses all the amazing stories that he told in the preceding chapters to further support his thesis. Chapter Eleven explains how textbooks are created to explain what causes them to be so bad.
Chapter Twelve explains the results of using standard American history textbooks and how they can actually make students stupid. At the beginning of each chapter, Loewen used three or four powerful quotes to foreshadow what the chapter is about. They also help the reader to establish what mood Loewen would like us to feel and to keep in mind while reading the chapter. Also, throughout the chapter, Loewen also uses quotes and passages from people, but mainly from textbooks. These passages are used to help the author show how vague textbooks are and even to show how textbook authors twist stories around what really happened. In addition, captivating pictures and charts are also included to illustrate some images and events that happened.
In this book, Loewen examines twelve United States History textbooks that "averaged four and a half pounds in weight and 888 pages in length. " (p. 3) The underlying message in Lies My Teacher Told Me is that one can not trust their history books or their teachers because they [textbooks] are a security to teachers, manipulate our feelings, glorify heroes, and provide erroneous information and detail. First, relying on textbooks makes it easier for both the teachers and students to put forth minimal effort. Many think that textbooks countless lists of main ideas, key terms, people to remember, dates, review identifications are the main things students should learn and memorize. Also, "teaching against a textbook can also be scary.
Textbooks offer security. Teachers can hide behind them when principals, parents, or students challenge them to defend their work. " (p. 284) They are also afraid of being put on the spot and not knowing the answer to they students questions. Therefore, textbooks provide them with all they think they need to know and to teach. Textbooks also manipulate our feelings and ideas to form our views accordingly and to make us fell more sympathy towards a certain side. For example, "the civil rights movement has allowed us to rethink our history.
Having watched Northerners, black and white, go south to help black win civil rights in the 1960 s, todays textbook authors display more sympathy for Northerners who worked with Southern blacks during Reconstruction. " (p. 190) Textbooks most likely downplay all this because they do not want to offend white Southerners today. The first chapter is about heroes, such as Helen Keller and Woodrow Wilson, and what textbooks do to these heroes. Many do not know that Keller was a radical socialist and Wilson was a white supremacist because textbook authors choose to leave out these facts. "As part of the process of hero fication, textbook authors treat America itself as a hero, indeed as the hero of their books, so they remove the wars. " (p. 206) America needs heroes, so textbooks try to make them as sympathetic as possible sometimes omitting blemishes and even making up stories to make it sound more heroic. Though many think Christopher Columbus was a great hero for discovering America, which he did not, he was actually a cruel, barbaric man, who raped women and chopped of the hand of those who did not obey his commands. And, America was not even first discovered by the Europeans, but by the Africans. "The possibility of African discovery of America has never been a tempting one for American historians. " (p. 37) Thus, many textbooks and teachers fail to tell us this when we deserve the right to know. Next, textbooks provide irrelevant and even erroneous detail failing to provide readers with pivotal information and facts.
An example is Christopher Columbus because his very life is made up in the textbooks. Though textbooks say that he was born in Genoa of poor parents who in the end died poor and penniless, none of that is certain. (p. 54) Also, contrary to the popular belief and what we learn in textbooks, Native Americans and Whites worked together and even sometimes lived together. Thanks to the Natives, their influence on food, words, names, farming methods, and other contributions have made a lasting impact on all our lives. But, because of the many wars over land the Native Americans were thought as a conflict partner and Americans eventually forgot everything they had once taught them. (pp. 110 124) Lies My Teacher Told Me should be read by every American because it provides the truth about some of the misconceptions and lies in history.
James Loewen does a great job with providing us the true information of people such as Helen Keller, Woodrow Wilson, Christopher Columbus, John Brown, and Abraham Lincoln. He also tells us what really happened during the First Thanksgiving and the Vietnam War. I would recommend this book to every student studying United States history because the ten chapters are filled with amazing stories that one will not ever forget. It shocked me that I was not aware of certain beliefs of the people listed above, as well as what really happened during renowned events in history. The book also advises the reader to be careful when reading history textbooks, because even textbooks provide irrelevant detail and even create erroneous ones, too. Word Count: 1243
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Research essay sample on Lies My Teacher Told Me By James Loewen
