Lies My Teacher Told Me Summary

After reading this chapter of Lies My Teacher Told Me, the reader finds out information that is shocking and completely different compared to what they have been taught. Not to mention it makes sense. Ideas have either been falsified or twisted into something that is not entirely true. History textbooks really do leave out the information or give the wrong information, that could really make history more enjoyable and interesting for its

Most children in the United States, grow up with the stories of the brave and heroic Christopher Columbus, who risked his life to connect the western and eastern hemispheres. There is even a day dedicated to his "good work" and "heroism". But the stories don't explore the whole truth. Since his discoveries led to the founding of America, history turns a blind eye to his immoral actions and the consequence of his deeds. Christopher Columbus is a villain because he enslaved, wiped out and manipulated the populations of the Native Americans in the Indies.

Though a vast majority of students learn about Columbus’ great conquests and celebrate him as a hero, very few know of the horrible atrocities he caused when he first landed in America. While considered a hero by most in the United States, Zinn argues that people should think twice about Columbus’ actions, and question whether his behavior to the Indians was necessary. In quotes one and five, Zinn clearly depicts his thoughts on the atrocities done by Columbus and other colonists to the natives living in America.

Throughout recorded human history, authors, leaders, and researchers, have documented the past from many different perspectives, and viewpoints. Not every historian has the same stance on a certain issue, therefore, differences in point of view occur in almost every writing. In the textbook The American Pageant, A People’s History of the United States by Larry Schweikart, and Michael Allen, and Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, the reader can see many different perspectives throughout each reading. The infamous explorer known as Christopher Columbus, has been documented in many different ways. Depending on the reading, Columbus has be called everything from a “[...]symbol of the new age of hope”, to an inhuman tyrant who captured Indians and turned them into slaves.

All across the United States, students learn that Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492 and “discovered” North America. This common misconception creates a false narrative for Americans learning about Christopher Columbus’ legacy - and indeed about the country’s early post-European history. When Christopher Columbus came ashore, North America was already inhabited by hundreds of thousands of native peoples so the concept of Christopher Columbus somehow “discovering” what is now the United States of America is inaccurate. He did, however, set off a process of conquering the land and its people for the Western World. He did so through brutal tactics including forced labor, enslavement, violence, and widespread killing.

A more pressing matter is that of the history in the classroom. With the one sided history being instructed to Native students bring a message that “Their history does not matter,” alienation begins to form and all motivation soon leaves the students (Laura).

All history comes with contradictions. With every moment in history comes a corresponding moment which can take the accuracy and understanding and change them forever. Throughout time people add small pieces of information to great events in our past. This is where we get the misinterpretation of history. In chapter five of the book Lies My Teacher Told Me, these contradictions are brought into light and force us to look at them again. As I have learned in my history courses we can always question the accuracy of a story but we may never fully understand the truth. There have been three important times I have been through that have shaped my understanding of history today, specifically the part of history dealing with slavery and racism.

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

This study would closely analyze various aspects related to “Thinking Through the Past” by John Hollitz. The author attempts to bring forth certain critical factors, which are closely knitted U.S. history. It can be stated that the major challenge is to identify actual facts embedded in the past. There is a need to reflect upon particular questions and determine probable explanations. When we become skilled at historical reasoning, we are able to better acquire knowledge about the world. History texts usually encompass a practical purpose. In this study, the main aim is to focus on historical evidences associated with U.S. history. Historians are often witnessed to contradict one another. This is simply due to source of motivation, which eventually drags a historian towards a standpoint. “Thinking Through the Past” is an approach undertaken by John Hollitz in order to make students aware about specific reasons that had triggered some well-known battles of U.S. This study shall revolve around the debate, which took place over Philippines, and significance of gender in such controversy. There shall be some views highlighted given by Kristin L. Hoganson on gender concerns.

When I learned history from textbooks, I trusted blindly in them. I doubt that most of people will have suspicions from them. Well, in fact, “each” histories were written by historians and they “injected” their intensions in textbooks. I, as a student, won’t be able to classify what is true and what is not from them. At school, I believed in everything that was written in history books. For instance, Japan and South Korea is fighting to insist that the land called “Dokdo” in Korean and “Takeshima” in Japanese, is their own land. As I learned history in South Korea, I definitely thought the land belonged to us. The fact is that Japanese believe the land belongs to them, because Japanese history books must have said so. I realized just

When it comes to American history , the credibility of our textbooks has been a problem recent years, especially those in high school. And what we are taught in class seem to be far away from our real life. Facing such an irrelevant and boring subject, most high school students have no choice but to suffer the course and struggle for it. The book Lies My Teacher Told Me may account for this phenomenon to some extent.

Loewen’s thesis in chapter three of “Lies My Teacher Told Me” was that almost everything we know about Thanksgiving is wrong. For example, the textbooks we learn from only teach us the side of the Englishmen, perhaps to cover up the not so heroic side of the Pilgrims? If you look back with the “common sense” we have now, we would have known it was the Native Americans we should’ve been thanking, not God. Even though what really happened was traumatic for the Wampanoag. History is always written by the winners, so when someone is in search of the truth they may want to get the story from the other side also.

The study of history and the teaching of history has come under intense public debate in the United States in the last few decades. The “culture-wars” began with the call to add more works by non-Caucasians and women and has bled into the study of history. Not only in the study of history or literature, this debate has spread into American culture like wildfire.

The book Lies My Teacher Told me, by James W. Loewen, was written with the intention to inform anybody that has ever learned about history, in the United States, using a textbook that they have, most likely, been given false information. The books and information that has been in Elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, and even college classes are skewed, by mostly telling stories in the United States favor. Loewen wrote the book to tell the real stories of our nation 's history. The book is extremely beneficial to the contribution to our collective knowledge and understanding, in view of the fact that American’s need to realize that not everything has worked out for the best for the United States, and for our country to have

    The Civil War and Columbus finding the Americas will always be in our history and can never be changed even if we try. Professor Leo Killsback of Arizona State University talked of how “Columbus Day is not a time of celebration but a reminder of “historic crimes” against Native Americans”; while Laura Anastasia; the author of the  article “ Monumental Battle”, she gives an insight in how “We haven’t really dealt with the legacy of the Civil War and slavery”. How us, Americans supposed to learn from our mistakes and grow as a country if we take away the foundations that built the country where we live today? Columbus