About six months ago, at a fundraising event for the nonprofit I founded, Project H, a six-year-old girl handed me a pickle jar full of pennies....
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As a teacher, I was frustrated with how little my students knew of America's history. The Vietnam War was in 1952; Abraham Lincoln was president in the 1700s! Lies My Teacher Told Me provides an excellent analysis of why American History textbooks are bland, inaccurate, and even blatantly wrong. He shows us how vibrant individuals like Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Columbus have been turned into 1-dimensional, perfect heroes. His discussions of race, women's rights efforts, and progress--which permeate the book--sculpt an exciting tale of the shaping of American attitudes. Much of what is happening in current political scenes can be seen as replicating the actions of previous eras. Much of the rhetoric we hear today can be found in the poorly written history our children have learned from textbooks that try to offend no special interest group. My copy has now been read/heard by seven people, each who has found it exhilarating to read and passed it along to another. I'm hoping it eventually returns to me.
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Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W Loewen
Margaret FalerSweany, December 19, 2006
As a teacher, I was frustrated with how little my students knew of America's history. The Vietnam War was in 1952; Abraham Lincoln was president in the 1700s! Lies My Teacher Told Me provides an excellent analysis of why American History textbooks are bland, inaccurate, and even blatantly wrong. He shows us how vibrant individuals like Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Columbus have been turned into 1-dimensional, perfect heroes. His discussions of race, women's rights efforts, and progress--which permeate the book--sculpt an exciting tale of the shaping of American attitudes. Much of what is happening in current political scenes can be seen as replicating the actions of previous eras. Much of the rhetoric we hear today can be found in the poorly written history our children have learned from textbooks that try to offend no special interest group. My copy has now been read/heard by seven people, each who has found it exhilarating to read and passed it along to another. I'm hoping it eventually returns to me.(28 of 42 readers found this comment helpful)