Lies My Teacher Told Me

I took a break from Ken Robinson and began this book by James W. Loewen.

So far it's quite interesting. The core thesis of the book is to examine the lies and half-truths our American History textbooks pass of as facts.

The first issue Loewen tackles related to this is the idea of heroification. History textbooks are notorious for this. He posits two examples: Helen Keller and Woodrow Wilson.

He states that almost all of his students can tell him that Keller was existing in a child-like state until her teacher, Anne Sullivan, signed 'water' into her hand under a stream of water and from that moment on, Keller's world began to open up.

That tends to be the extent of his students' knowledge garnered from their textbooks. They also add that she became a prominent writer and speaker.

That's it.

He argues that textbooks have turned Keller into a hero for the disabilities she overcame. But by doing so, they leave out far too many key details about her life, details that might undermine the idea of Keller as hero (well, a good old American hero any way).

For instance - she was a radical socialist who supported communist Russia, even going so far as to hang a red flag over the desk in her office. Can you imagine?

She became a supporter of socialism after traveling and witnessing the appalling work conditions and treatment of laborers throughout the country. To become such a radical at that conservative and patriotic time in history - when she was the most famous woman on the planet! - is worthy of being looked at as heroic. Yet, all that is left out of the history textbooks.

Wilson, too, is often portrayed as a hero, and for just reasons, however, he was guilty of his share of shameful activities - racism (some African Americans had been appointed to rather lofty positions (given the era, such as post masters in all black areas in southern towns and port collector of New Orleans and the District of Columbia and register of the treasury), yet when Wilson came into office all of that ended. He had a vicious foreign policy - starting a war (yes, according to Loewen, we had American troops fighting Russian soldiers on their own soil. I never heard that one) with Russia and manipulating the overthrow of many a government of other countries.

Interestingly, Loewen states that Wilson was a nativist, quoting the President as stating "Any man who carries a hypen about with him, carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this Republic whenever he gets read." What would he think of today's multi-cultural (ha - see there's hyphen) movement and the 'blending' of the colors of our country.

Now these negative aspects of Wilson should also be presented. We do students no good by just showing them the rosy side of life and our leaders. Wilson, it must be remembered, did great things in office, despite these blunders.

What can we learn from them? How can we view them in light of the world we live in today? How can we reconcile them?

These are questions students need to address, Loewen argues, in their history classes to make history come alive.

I agree.

Thanks to Chapter one, I have a great new quote.

Keller has a great line that I am going to put up in my room this fall: "People do not like to think. If one thinks, one must reach conclusions. Conclusions are not always pleasant."

Loewen's second chapter is devoted to Columbus. Now that should be interesting.

Speaking of interesting, Loewen briefly discussed one thing a fellow professor does with his American history students on the first day of class. He asks them to list the first ten prominent Americans, pre Civil War, that come to their minds.

I struggled, but here are mine.

George Washington, Paul Revere, Thomas Jefferson, Herman Melville, Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, Ben Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Patrick Henry, and Emily Dickinson.

As an English teacher, it's easy to see that my list is dominated by authors.

I hope all of these are pre Civil War, but I'm not completely sure.

Because the professor's students gave him the same presidents and generals over and over, he made a new stipulation "excluding presidents, generals, statesmen, and so on."

The top two - Paul Revere and Betsy Ross.