Theresa K. (Tesstarosa) - , reviewed on 6/21/2011 + 151 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 1

While this book is slightly dated (copyright 1995) and I graduated high school more than a dozen years before that, I have a feeling the issues that Mr Loewen discusses in his book are still issues in high school American history coursework today.

A well-written book that covers the many errors (yes, completely wrong information) and omissions that are common in most books used to teach American history in our classrooms. And, how the misinterpretation of our countries history is detrimental to many of the students that learn this history especially Native American and African-American students.

The authors main issue with how American history is taught is that it must be taught that one view is the right view. There is never a presentation that choices that were made may not have been the best option or how the choices affected the lives of Americans going forward. Our high school American history books present our history in black and white and not the many shades of gray that it truly is.

I felt he hit on one of the main problems in how American history is taught in our schools and sadly, it is the result of influence from the American Legion (a good organization) that came up with these four goals for the ideal textbook for teaching American history in 1925:
Must inspire the children with patriotism
Must be careful to tell the truth optimistically
Must dwell on failure only for its value as a moral lesson, must speak chiefly of success . . .
Must give each State and SEctin full space and value for the achievements of each

The problem with these four goals is that they force the history book writers to gloss over the bad parts of American history and put too much emphasis on what went well.

For me, his book points out that, in addition to falling behind in math and science, American students are falling behind in the critical thinking that is needed to make decisions about our world going forward based on what really did or did not happen in the past.

As our education system is set up today (assuming it is still the same model as 1995), we are doomed to repeat history, over and over again.

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