Lies My Teacher Told Me- Introduction and Chapter 1

This book opens with the immediate claim that high school students hate history. History is easily the most boring subject in school in the eyes of students because teachers turn the subject into a lecture hall that requires only regurgitation of memorized dates and names, and no critical thinking or excessive thought. Generally, history text books create heroes rather than telling the full truth. Indeed, Loewen provides the example of Helen Keller. Students learn of her valiant struggles to learn to communicate- but they miss out on hearing about her support of the Communist party and her staunch alliance to socialism. History textbooks elevate certain characters from the past by only highlighting their positive impacts on the course of history, rather than delving into some of their falls from grace- for example, Woodrow Wilson used his power as president to segregate the federal government (19), but students don't tend to hear that side of the past. History is written by the victors, and textbook authors wish to present these victors as positive images that people can look up to as role models. Textbooks lie by omission when they leave out dirty facts, and the lies spun make history a dry subject that no student would have interest in. Sadly, even when the truth is presented to the public, it is often hard to convince people of the truth because so many heroic attributes have been drilled into our heads since elementary school.

In my classroom, this definitely applies to my future teaching style. It will be my responsibility to go beyond the textbook and present the other side of history to my students. In order to foster critical thinking, students must engage in the darker side of history. This way, they can learn how changes occurred and why many stories of the past are not as cut and fresh as they seem to be. Primary sources from the other side will be a great way to shed some light on the darkness. I believe that by illustrating historical figures as they truly were, and not as some false hero, they will become more relate-able. This is important for young people to learn because it gives them all a sense of self-worth and potential. Of course, I will be working against the grain of established writings, so I will be sure to provide accurate and trustworthy cited sources to prove credibility.

I think that one big question this chapter fails to answer is how should we touch on the positive aspects of history's villains? Loewen makes a great point when he argues we are lying by creating heroes, but are we also committing lies of omission by leaving out the good that our villains did? By making history so black and white between good and evil, we take away the legitimacy and realistic quality that history actually does have, it's just that nobody gets to hear about it unless they do some digging on their own. For this reason, I believe a research paper in which students are required to either find a positive impact of a stereotypical bad guy or a negative impact of a stereotypical hero. 
For a helpful start, students could pull from the following sites;

Woodrow Wilson- Progressive Racism
A Blog About Adolf Hitler

Overall, the opening chapters of Lies My Teacher Told Me immediately work to open our eyes to the information lacking from our history textbooks. It will be my job as a future educator to present the whole picture of history- not just the fairytale endings that textbooks are always eager to publish.