review of Lies My Teacher Told Me
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 nation's 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. The event, or chain of events, which came most surprisingly to me was Loewen's description of "the first Thanksgiving;" I had already remotely known about some of the circumstances, but the bitter details of American settlement astonished me. For example, I had learned as early as fifth grade that the Europeans brought disease to Native Americans, but not that the fatality rate was ninety to ninety-six percent. I also knew of the first European settlements of St. Augustine, Roanoke, and Jamestown, which Loewen criticizes as being left out of or only mentioned in some book
Some of the topics that Loewen covers are not quite as interesting or contrasting between the textbooks and reality. But the idea he hopes to leave us with is that people, and the teachers educating the people most especially, must strive to understand history better by incorporating a variety of sources because the textbooks seek to portray our country as best as possible. This is the reason why he tells us that the type of teacher he appreciates, and dedicates this book to, is the one who goes beyond the textbook's information and incorporates the present with the past. It may be because I have been fortunate enough to experience this type of teaching for my most recent understanding of American history, but I fully agree with Loewen's ideas in Lies My Teacher Told Me and found the book to be both interesting and informative. Besides giving me better ideas for going about learning US history, it educated me in the events which will not be mentioned or covered as fully as in Lies My Teacher Told Me. The second part that I found to be of great interest is Loewen's discussion of Woodrow Wilson and the "Process of Hero-Making." Strangely, even though I had never before been very familiar with his administration, I found the comparison between portrayal of Wilson and reality to be humorously different. The point that the author intends to make with his discussion of Wilson is the wrongful making of very "unheroic" historical figures into heroes. He attempts to convince us that the incidents that Wilson was involved in and/or caused are no reason for him to be see
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Approximate Word count = 1063
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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