Honesty In Teach Us History

Why is there racial tension and political dissension in America? Why did Russia feel its Crimean invasion was justifiable? How did China become an economic power? These questions are answered by a proper understanding of history, helping us to better comprehend the world of 2015. Education’s role needs to be thus: to prepare students as learned individuals and to exist in such an international community. This is why I think history is still incredibly relevant despite focusing on the

The people who are in power tend to view the outcome as positive, while the people looked down upon think of it negatively. For example, Columbus’s journey to the Americas and his ravaging of the Indians would be totally different that from the Indians. Columbus views his overtaking as positive because he though he discovered new land. Meanwhile, the Indians were forced to relocate because of the European demand for land. Zinn illustrates these different perspectives through his observation that “To emphasize the heroism of Columbus and his successors as navigators and discoverers, and to de-emphasize their genocide, is not a technical necessity but an ideological choice. It serves unwittingly to justify what was done” (Zinn, 9). One person’s hero is another person’s terrorist and the viewer’s social class and race often shape that perception. This applies to teachers as well, and raises the question of whether teachers should share their opinions in history class. In the article “Why Students Should Study History” Zinn states that “all history is subjective; all history represents a point of view” (Zinn, 14). With Zinn’s words in mind, it is appropriate for teachers to voice their opinion, as every viewpoint should be heard. However, when voicing their opinion, a teacher should make it clear that his/her opinion is subjective and can be

American history has been altered consistently by textbook companies, leaving out important details which introduce the focuses in a lighter manner and leaves the learner asking questions.

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

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.

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.

History is often fabricated and told in a way that is appealing to youth and descendants. History is often told from “white eyes” Loewen suggest that it be told through red eyes to provide true insight in what has formed our country. “One does not start from point zero, but from minus ten” (Loewens 93). High School students are presented information in a biased way. Students are not always taught how to view a situation through another perspective. Students are only able to view a situation based on how they have lived or what they know best. When teaching history of the world teachers often teach harsh situations from the past in ways that are fabricated. “If we look Indian history squarely in the eye, we are going to get red eyes” (Loewen 95). In this statement Loewen suggest that if a reader looks at a situation “squarely” the reader will develop “red eyes” that open the reader up to reality of our decedents and the

While the pledge of allegiance is meant to enlist pride in students, people should have the right not to deal with this kind of patriotic ordeals. When we pledge “allegiance,” we are promising to be loyal and honest to our nation, the United States, and while these important ideas are beneficial, we should not be forced to pledge loyalty to a nation. The Declaration of Independence clearly says that people have the "right and duty" to go against an unfair as well as a corrupt government. While this should only be thought of when things go out of control done many do not approve of the government, and they should feel comfortable saying so. As things are, right now students and anyone for the matter should not be required to say the pledge of allegiance. There is, in some areas, pressure to "give in" and say it just because everyone one else is already doing so. People should be all for the educations of the nations students and the importance of voting in election polls to practice democracy, and student s should be well informed about the issues that the nation is

Many Americans today are extremely uneducated and misinformed when it comes to the history of their nation purely because they find the learning of it boring. Because of the nature of American history courses and the distribution of knowledge in America, James W. Loewen wrote the book, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, to make history more relevant to people who’ve been “bored to tears by their high school American history courses” (xii) because to be effective citizens today we must be able to understand our past.

The term slave is defined as a person held in servitude as the chattel of another, or one that is completely passive to a dominating influence. The most well-known cases of slavery occurred during the settling of the United States of America. From 1619 until July 1st 1928 slavery was allowed within our country. Slavery abolitionists attempted to end slavery, which at some point; they were successful at doing so. In a quote by Fredrick Douglas, “A battle lost or won is easily described, understood, and appreciated, but the moral growth of a great nation requires reflection, as well as observation, to appreciate it.” Throughout history many things have happened that were by many thought to be unconscionable. Yet, the people who were putting their mark of unacceptance upon those committing these crimes, who thought them to be deplorable acts, were unaware of the actual situations, and in many cases, committing the same acts themselves.

Choosing an American government and history teacher was an easy choice because it was a my favorite subject, and we call can benefit from the teachings of the past. “We thought nothing could be worse than world war one, then guess what? World war two cam along.”said Mr. Bo Tillman, a passionate history and government teacher at Lafayette High School, during mid-interview, this was his response to a question about why history and government became his focus. “If you don't learn from it you know, everything rolls back” Bo Tillman helped me understand this country, the American government, the life lessons we can learn from everything in our history, and its direct translation to our daily lives.

The New York Times reported one student saying, “You can’t erase our history. It’s not patriotic.” and proponents see banning topics that encourage or condone civil disorder as akin to relegating iconic figures such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and César Chávez—as well as less well-known crusaders for justice—to the margins of our national memory. These books are and important factor in the history of our nation, and others are asking how any U.S. history class cannot involve nuanced engagement with the civil rights movement, labor movements and other pivotal events in the long march for justice. “The message for the school board is clear: Whitewashing U.S. history and masking important realities will simply not do and cannot be tolerated.” (Lindburg) Proponents say that banning these books takes away from our history, and further reduces our access to learning about our past, and seeing how we can grow from our mistakes that we may have made as a

Reconstruction did not come to a complete end at 1877; the effects of the war have listed for generations, even until today. This is evident in the most recent chapter of Davidson and Lytle’s After The Fact: The Art of Historical Detection, which delves into the story of the millions of slaves that had recently been freed following the end of the American Civil War in 1865 through interviews of thousands of former slaves in the 1930s. Throughout the chapter, the authors explore the themes of deception and mistrust in both history and its re-telling in accounts of former slaves, plantation owners, and Union soldiers.

Wouldn’t you want kids of the world to know your legacy, how you went out. In a world like that there is no human rights. All you can do is teach your younger kids from right and wrong. That’s why it’s so crucial to teach them history. All the mistakes that people made reflect this country. From the excerpt, “The world must not forget” it states in paragraph five that, “The world must know and it must not forget. It must know and remember the character of the enemy we are overthrowing and make sure that the enemy never again can gain the strength to perpetuate more horrors.” (Source 2). The youth of the world need to know to not make those same mistakes again. They need to learn this for that

I understand the author’s stance. Despite growing up in a small, conservative military town, I did not experience the indoctrination Loewen is warning us about. In my experience, the teachers always went outside the text and incorporated materials that provided a clear, accurate picture of history. They taught us to think critically, identify bias, and