Thomas Paine stated what many people of his time had been thinking, “… the union of such a people was impractical.” At this point the government was changing to bring “cordial unison” of the American people. During the late 1700’s people faced some of the same problems America is still facing. For
Book Review: Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen Lies My Teacher Told Me is James Loewen’s analysis of how courses in American high schools and, more particularly, their textbooks, are a disservice to the students, and furthermore, the country said texts and courses aim to protect. Loewen begins by addressing how high school textbooks treat historical figures such as Helen Keller and Woodrow Wilson: portraying them as bland heroes sans any interesting facts societal forces might find objectionable or define as “taboo.” Next, Loewen discusses how race is misrepresented in textbooks, using the example of Christopher Columbus, who is continually portrayed as a scholarly explorer, ignoring his role in slavery and genocide of Native Americans. Identified is how the roles of European-American beliefs in oneness, and inferiority of the Indian society, go unchallenged, perpetuating myths about superiority and inferiority of such races and further promoting Whiteness in schools. Loewen then turns to the plight of African Americans, and discusses how racism remains invisible in textbooks, which allows justification of the institution of slavery as well as demand for its abolition. Also discussed is how textbooks ignore other taboo subjects such as social stratification, and also how they portray government snafus like handling foreign policy and the Civil Rights movement as rosy government triumphs.
The book begins mainly by narrating the initial relationship of the white man to the Indian in the early American years, from Christopher Columbus and the arrival of the pilgrims to the early 1800s. The relationship seemed to be peaceful as the Indians helped the white men settle and survive their first winter. Soon the new settlers start taking over Native American land, at first in a subtle way, and then by any means and with little remorse. Brown describes in every chapter a different tribe with its own battles and how the Indians were not only destroyed but also betrayed. All the tribes seem to describe in their own story how the whites started to obliterate their religion, their culture and their way of life.
After 3 months, Clinton finally sent in aid and troops, yet faced a mass amount of criticisms for their non-response to the genocide, as his actions were deemed ‘too little, too late’. These two international policy failures were important as it made Clinton appear to be indecisive in international issues, making him a dovish President and as a result of this, the president’s disapproval ratings raised to 49% from 38% at the beginning of the year, highlighting his inexperience and weakness as a President. On the other hand, Clinton did have some international policy successes, most notably through
Black Elk said to Neihardt, "What I know was given to me for men and it is true and it is beautiful. Soon I shall be under the grass and it will be lost. You were sent to save it, and you must come back so that I can teach you." Neihardt did come back with his daughters in May 1931 to continue the conversation, which forms the book Black Elk Speaks. Black Elk's son Ben acted as interpreter for the two men, and Neihardt's daughter Enid recorded their conversation in writing.
He points to George W. Bush's “No Child Left Behind Act.” "The military style reading and math drills prompted by President Bush's No Child Left Behind program have pushed out history, music, art and physical education and may in fact be destroying American Schools." (Schrag, 41) I agree with the last argument that Schrag presented. Because I attend Fairfield University, I think it would be contradictory to do otherwise. Fairfield is a curriculum based around a well rounded core. Before you take your major courses, you must complete a core curriculum, covering various subjects so the student is familiarized in the general education of an educated person.
Wordplay is the reason why most politicians seem to be lawyers not politicians. The questions brought up have been and always been either avoided or rather ingeniously walked around since the establishment of our constitution. Was it because our forefathers didn’t have an exact answer, did they foresee possible problems and left it open to time. Either way the lack of exact translation has shaped America and allowed alternate ideals to flourish. The author brings a question that although it almost has an obvious answer has been and still is a strong problem in the establishment of a fair and equal nation, and that question is “Who Is A Person”.
In the book, Loewen decribes it as, "A generative process that makes people over into heroes. (11)". In “Lies My Teacher Told Me” they use Christopher Columbus as an exmple. Christopher is portrayed to be and immaculate, and have no bad flaws or intentions but, in reality, American textbooks leave out huge chunks of information that would leave you thinking differently about him. Some more prime examples of heroification are our presidents.
Martin Luther King Jr. states “Oppressed People cannot remain oppressed forever.” (Cahn, 2009 p. 387) As we have seen throughout history, this is a true statement. Oppression is not something that sits well with any type of person that is under the oppression. To resist the oppression, one must carefully chose those laws that they fill are unjust and oppresses them, and once they are chosen then one can make a stand against the oppression. Oppression is unjust law that limits the power of the people that are oppressed into feeling powerless. The United States fought of the oppression over the colonies in the late 1700’s by first peacefully protesting the unjust taxes waged against them.
Frye, Chandler The Truth About the First Thanksgiving Have you ever found yourself wondering just how much we really know about the history of the United States? What if there were numerous amounts of facts and stories that our schools’ textbooks left out, or just simply lied about? That is exactly what James W. Loewen had set out to discuss in his article, The Truth about the First Thanksgiving, which can be found in the collection Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. James W. Loewen made several interesting key points that need to be considered when one thinks about the true story of the first Thanksgiving. Who were the first known settlers of what we now know as the United States?