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Lies My Teacher Told Me Essay

886 Words4 Pages

Out of all the many classes I’ve taken so far, history is one my least favorite class. History incredibly uninteresting me, but in addition to that, American history textbooks, neglect to include what I believe to be very important details about history. Since history textbooks wish depict the United States as one of the greatest country in world, the authors try to leave out any information that might hurt Americas image. “Lies My Teacher Told Me” by James W. Loewen, tries to inform students of today, the important information that was hidden from them in their American history textbooks. Loewen does great with explain certain topics and unnecessary errors in the student’s American history education, throughout his book In the start of the …show more content…

In the first of these two chapters, Loewen tries to bring realization to the conflict surrounding Christopher Columbus and his ill-guided intentions. This, however, is a very commonly disputed topic and needn’t have this book attempt to shine its own 'glory' upon it because that 'glory' is nowhere to be found. If a student were honestly interested about the Columbus dispute, they should take out one of the many videos or entire books about it from their library. They will definitely have a better understanding of the topic there rather than trying to stay awake while reading this book and sorting through all of the unnecessary convolutions.

The latter of the chapters continues almost directly after Columbus chronologically by then bringing up the topic of the first settlers of what is now known as the United States. Loewen, in the beginning of this chapter, claims to have asked college classes when the first settlers arrived in America, only to receive the unanimous answer of"1620". While it is truth that many do believe that the first settlers to be the Pilgrims, he must have been working at a remedial school to have received a unanimous consensus concerning the first settlers. While a dimwitted consensus such as this will most definitely not be found everywhere, Loewen apparently thought it prominent enough an issue to develop. Once again, he

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In the first chapter Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your AMerican History Textbook Got Wrong, James Loewen explores the common process of heroification within America’s history. The flaws of many individuals, specifically Woodrow Wilson and Helen Keller in this chapter, are usually overlooked when recounting their achievements. Loewen points outs that when heroes are recognized for certain things it only covers a short person of the person’s life. The media and schools filter out the bad to leave room for inspiration and good.

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Loewen argues, “The authors of history textbooks have taken us on a trip of their own, away from the facts of history, into the realm of myth.” As historical events regress further into the past, writers may misinterpret facts that they may have studied. A story of discovery and friendship or a tale of conquest, murder, and greed, which of these are Christopher Columbus’ true stories? I believe the best method to teach American high school students about Christopher Columbus’ story is through historiography because historiography teaches students to compare and distinguish different outlooks from different writers’ point of views instead of just remembering misinterpreted facts. Historiography would guide and force students to study and learn history through a diverse set of historians who focused on the same subject and come to different conclusions.

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