Chris's review
bookshelves:
history
status:
Read in May, 2006
Why does nobody like high school history? Or civics, or social studies, or whatever they're calling it these days. Why does pretty much everybody hate this class? I mean, you have people who can memorize irrelevant sporting statistics for the last fifty years, but they can't name more than two nineteenth-century presidents.
The author of this book, a teacher and researcher of history, started looking into this. He'd found among his high school and college students an appalling level of ignorance in basic American history. So, he decided to try and figure out what went wrong and why.
His conclusion? Textbooks. The textbooks that we use in American history classes are simplistic, dry and patronizing, aimed not at teaching the students about the rich epic that is American history, but rather at reinforcing what they already believe to be true: America is a great place, and it's just getting greater.
Loewen has a lot of bones to pick with the history texts, but he limits himself h...more
Why does nobody like high school history? Or civics, or social studies, or whatever they're calling it these days. Why does pretty much everybody hate this class? I mean, you have people who can memorize irrelevant sporting statistics for the last fifty years, but they can't name more than two nineteenth-century presidents.
The author of this book, a teacher and researcher of history, started looking into this. He'd found among his high school and college students an appalling level of ignorance in basic American history. So, he decided to try and figure out what went wrong and why.
His conclusion? Textbooks. The textbooks that we use in American history classes are simplistic, dry and patronizing, aimed not at teaching the students about the rich epic that is American history, but rather at reinforcing what they already believe to be true: America is a great place, and it's just getting greater.
Loewen has a lot of bones to pick with the history texts, but he limits himself here to ten. He looks at things like heroification, social biases, omission of the underclass and so on. With twelve common texts to draw upon, he tries to see what they omit and what they include, and he is shocked and appalled.
The primary sin of American history textbooks, he believes, is a lack of conflict. They present our history as a series of semi-benign events that all turned out okay in the end. These were not things that we (the government, a president, society) did, they were things that just happened. There is no causality, no emotion, no contradiction. Nothing ever leads to anything else, and none of it certainly is reflected in modern times. And so what is left is a bright-eyed, doped up view of America, where everything is just fine, and whatever may happen in the future, we'll get through that as well.
His position is that if we could teach history properly, as a continuum that affects us even now, it would be more interesting. If we showed the contradictions and the unpleasantness, we could teach students to think critically and, in turn, be better citizens. The cynic in me, of course, immediately thinks, "Well, no one wants that!"
He does try to offer solutions, things that a good textbook should do - focus on fewer topics, offer a broader view, and force students to work outside the text, for example - but he also acknowledges that it's not nearly as easy as it sounds. One of the reasons why history texts have to be so bland and inoffensive is because they have to be. If the subject matter is too controversial, the economic implications could be catastrophic. Too much focus on Black achievement during the Reconstruction? Southern schools won't buy your book. Not enough focus on the achievements of women? Say hello to NOW, you'll be hearing from them a lot. For every page and every paragraph, there's some parent, teacher, administrator, student, or just plan nutjob who might take offense, and so the solution is to be as inoffensive as possible. And in a country where people get very offended very quickly, I can see how textbook publishers might find it easier just to give up and put out the same crap edition after edition.
It's a tough problem to solve, and Loewen admits that he doesn't really have the solution. All he can really do is shine a light on the problem, and hope that we can figure it out. Because history is essential to knowing what to do with the future of America. And, of course, the rest of the world.......less
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong 
