Lies, all lies!

So, I think a teacher reading Lies My Teacher Told Me borders on irony....

 But sorry kids, it doesn't fit the definition.

Anyway, I had a great time reading this nonfiction book (except maybe at the end, but I'll get to that). I knew many of the "lies" in the book, but there were some new facts I was unaware of (courtesy of the back cover: Woodrow Wilson was a white supremacist) and some really interesting analysis of history, which I've already established is a big interest of mine.

However, I wasn't always interested in history...well, in school history. As the first sentence of the introduction states,

"High school students hate history."

I know that many of the students at the school I teach at love history, and I think for that a lot of credit goes to the teachers. However, this book is not so much about teachers but about the "lies" in the textbooks students use in history, specifically United States History. In fact, I remember I really only liked history when I went to museums or when my teachers went "off script" and really tried to show the connections between events. This is the premise of Lies My Teacher Told Me.

I loved how this book began with "the process of hero-making," pointing out that many of the "lies" in textbooks are the result of people trying to make archetypal heroes out of historical figures, especially when their "real" story is either really "villainous" or still so admirable that you could overlook the very human flaws of the heroes (and just about every type of literary hero has flaws!). For example, little is written about Helen Keller after she was a child, and that is because she became a socialist and was a champion for the rights of the disenfranchised. I was fascinated to read about how in her work advocating for the blind, she was horrified by how many were blind because of their poverty (i.e. they had accidents in dangerous workplaces, couldn't afford medical care, etc.) and took radical positions to champion causes like women's suffrage, civil rights, and other quests for civil liberties. I also appreciated the discussion of how the media turned against her, as the once courageous symbol of overcoming adversity to earn a college degree was converted to one who was bamboozled and handicapped by "the limitations of her development."

As an example of those "villains" of history, I knew Columbus was in fact a pretty bad dude (who did not "discover" America), but I didn't realize the extent of the atrocities he committed against the native population, mutilating and enslaving them to the point that the 8 million native Haitians (Arawaks) around before Columbus had dwindled to 12,000 by 1516! Columbus initiated trafficking in humans across the Atlantic, and those that followed unleashed a torrent of diseases, rape, and abuse that decimated native American populations

I also knew about the history of slavery among the founding fathers (thanks in large part to DNA proving that Thomas Jefferson had fathered children with his slaves), but I didn't know that Patrick Henry, giver of the famous "Give me liberty or give me death" speech of so much study was in fact a slave holder! Talk about contradictions...

However, I also liked how the author brought all of this up as it

mattered in the context of the time, and discussed how we can reconcile things like the "good pilgrims" robbing Native American graves if we view through the lens of history (i.e. economic interest and treating "others" as less than human to justify taking what one wants...you know, like the underpants gnomes did!). In fact, as the author points out, it doesn't make our country any less great to acknowledge the mistakes of the past; rather, it helps us understand our present.

This comes up in the chapter "The Land of Opportunity," which points out that economics is rarely a point of discussion in social studies. The author says that consequently, students "have no understanding of the ways that opportunity is not equal in America, and no notion that social structure pushes people around, influencing the ideas they hold and the lives they fashion." If students were to study the rise of unions and anti-trust legislation and consider the impact of these events today (think "the 1%"), they would likely develop strong opinions that at the very least would keep them engaged in history. It would also do justice to students who come from economically or racially oppressed backgrounds to acknowledge that the deck is stacked against them, rather than imply that "bad fortune" is the reason things are so hard.

But as much as I liked this book, but Chapter 10 I grew a bit tired of the author's assault on textbooks. While warranted, I was much more interested in the impact of the "lies" on students than looking for culprits, and that's just me. However, I think if someone is truly interested in knowing the "truth" about famous events in history, the relationship between power and how stories are told, or in learning to think about and QUESTION the "facts" of history as they are presented, then this is a fantastic book.

I think this is an important book, especially when one considers the many ways those in power manipulate history to suit their purposes. 

Happy reading!