Lies my teacher told me...3?

It looks like I totally forgot to do the last weekly letter. My bad. I'm just going to put this here because I like my series to be completed. (It's probably too late for a loser like me, huh?

I'll end my letters with a final note on our concepts of the politically correct. I actually let a teacher, Ms. Kelly, borrow the book since I was done with it and she was interested.

So, why don't we learn about 9/11 in our modern world history textbooks? Even the multiple wars we started back in the 90's? It's not like our books are too dated to include these things, no, it's because apparently we have a tendency to censor things we consider controversial. Like there's no such thing as being neutral in history textbooks.

To tell the truth, I haven't heard much news of the war recently. Maybe it's because I don't really care. I should care but I don't really, and I feel like it's probably mostly exaggerated or otherwise not the whole truth and it will be at least twenty years before kids are allowed to learn about it in school. I wonder when we'll stop being in the war.

I wonder when all of mankind will stop warring. I think it's more likely that we create a nuclear winter. I'm kind of off topic now but seriously guys

I can't really think of anything else to say but at least I made a third letter

sincerely Irene

Review: Lies My Teacher Told Me

(Please excuse my incompetence regarding the quote format. Any suggestions, corrections, and critiques are willingly accepted and encouraged.)

Lies my teacher told me: Everything your American history textbook got wrong

James W. Loewen has written a groundbreaking coalition of analytical essays, separated by chapter, which work to enlighten us to the various inaccuracies that can be found in all of 18 leading American history textbooks. It poses to us subjects we should all be familiar with- and goes on to reinvent our ideas on the subjects into an unbiased and accurate truth. Chances are that if you read the book, you will come across many facts that will disagree with what you've learned from your history textbook. A refreshing and scathingly courageous addition to any library, Lies My Teacher Told Me will recreate your knowledge of American history forever.

In this review several questions will be attempted; the first being: What were the author's purposes in writing this book, and how can you tell? How well was this purpose achieved? Well, there are clearly several purposes that can be assumed to exist upon reading a book like this. The author's intent was clearly to spark distrust in the American high school education, but it was also to propose solutions to the myriad of problems which appear. It highlights the unsatisfactory content in our textbooks, but doesn't hesitate to show us situations which challenge that content- situations in which teachers or the community have risen up to create better understanding of the crucial information ignored by the majority of our textbooks. Here's an example:

"Many of the books that criticize American education are published by companies that also put out the textbooks they criticize. One of the glories of capitalism is that somewhere there are publishers who will publish almost any book, so long as they can stand to make a profit from it."

"Across America, new, more accurate historical markers and monuments are going up... Perhaps we must conclude... that the power elite did not have its thumb in every pie."

"On the other hand, if textbooks are devised by the upper class to manipulate youngsters to support the status quo, they hardly seem to be succeeding. Instead of revering Columbus et al., students wind up detesting history. Evidence suggests that history textbooks and courses make little impact in increasing trust in the United States or inducing good citizenship, however these are measured."

This selection of quotes has been chosen to draw attention to the myriad of ideas and facts that are brought together to create an unbiased and informative piece of literature. The author clearly states his distaste for the capitalist grip on our American history education, but doesn't hesitate to remind us that at least some of our youths and faculty are aware of these problems and are simultaneously working towards the truth they desire. Clearly, Loewen is confident in change, but at the same time argumentative, which is considered by this reviewer to be an admirable quality that does his critique well.

A less general but equally important topic that Loewen addresses is "the invisibility of racism in American history textbooks," which is surely a topic of interest for American high school students. As a high school student experiencing history class, it's very easy to recognize the tendency to ignore racism in the textbooks. When racism is addressed, it's done very mildly, usually without firsthand evidence of the horrendous treatment many groups of people faced throughout history. While that's arguably an optional addition to a text that aims to properly explain an instance of racism, there are hardly any alternative and equivalent options at our disposal to properly define the horrors that racism brings.

Another intriguing question is posed, and that is "for what groups or audiences was this book intended?" Clearly, the book is aimed at several different kinds of people. Not only ones who have been directly affected by the lies produced in our leading history textbooks, but others who might perhaps be concerned with the situation. In this reviewer's case, it was because a student who had not yet begun an American high school history class wanted to know about the inevitable prejudice that was present. In every person, there is a deep-rooted desire for truth. It's this desire that drives us to engage ourselves in muckraking books such as this. We know that our world, and specifically our country is imperfect in race relations and many other areas, so an enlightening text would surely be beneficial in teaching us to be skeptical of all the right things.

And surely, it is in everyone's best interest to be skeptical- blind trust can lead to disaster, especially when it deals with material that is taught to our youth. The youth is indeed the most dependent of all. We are forced to attend school and must learn what they have to tell us, no matter our opinion, which is often times undervalued. Thus, without books such as Loewen's, there is nothing within our grasp which we can use to make a legitimate challenge against the material that is forced upon each of us. His book is considered by many to be an indisposable tool against the tyrannically controlled information that appears in nearly all American history textbooks.

Of course, we cannot limit the relevance of this text to the youth alone, for all educated American-born citizens have at one point been subjected to the information in American history textbooks. Many of them may never have encountered evidence contradictory to that which they acquired in their education. Whilst many Americans may accept the corrections found in Lies, it is perhaps fact that many of them will guard the beliefs they first learned many years ago. Fact because without fail, history has proven to us that a new generation is imperative for change of even this small magnitude. In my opinion, it is then no longer a matter of convincing the people who run the textbooks now to change; rather, it is a matter of recreating the system ourselves. It is our job to delve into the unforgiven depths of neglected history and bring back with us an assurance that our children, the children of our brothers and sisters, will know the truth.

Lies my teacher told me

Heeeeeey so I pretty much just decided to join your group on the fly after realizing that I had the book you had and that I somehow didn't have a reading group yet. Hope that's ok! I'm looking forward to an exciting time.

I don't know about everyone else but I sure learned a lot from this book. It's like in class, when we heard from the Green Collar book- I had just assumed that what I had been told about the future/past was true and until then there wasn't any legitimate evidence challenging it. Yeah! I feel totally enlightened!

SO, after reading so much criticism, how do you feel about our history textbooks? I realize that we're all probably in world history right now but some of the ideas were universal, like the one about never showing nudity or suffering in school texts. Nudity is a huge unnecessary taboo that I've addressed before, but I digress. Suffering, however, is censored I think not because it is mentally scarring, but because it scars our opinion about war. It's one thing to read about casualties and horrors that civilians faced. It's quite another to have visual verification of these things. We live in a country that has always glorified war, for better or for worse. Of course our history texts would be no exception- rather the epitomizing of the whole thing.

The author also brings up the point that the public should have a say in what they think their youth should be learning, as stated by one of the publishers. With this, I have to say I disagree a bit. We can't let the community censor information, or we prolong the ignorance that the community may or may not be aware of, right?

I knew there was censorship in my textbooks. But I never thought it would be this bad, especially all around the country. Actually, I think that I did.

I know it's not just America who has these problems. Many countries have their own individual problems with censorship. Lots of kids in Japan and China don't know that anyone ever landed on the moon. My dad pointed out that it was probably because America was the only one to put a base there, and they probably didn't want to teach kids something so exclusive. Speaking of which, the science program in the US (poorly funded as it is) has decided to stop manned missions to space, which disappointed many formidable scientists.

Also, I thought the racism thing really rang true- how minorities generally do a lot worse in history classes. It makes lots of sense why they lose interest when their people's inevitable contribution isn't addressed.

That thing about Columbus... augh. I mean, while reading that paragraph, I knew it was lies, which was the worst thing. They didn't even try to disguise it. And I'm sick and fucking tired of history books making it look like the non-religious are the enemy. "Oh, columbus was a humble, religious man we should admire" bullshit.

Overall the book has posed quite a few infuriating situations that seem beyond our grasp, but I know that to change them is within reach. Also like the green collar thing. It seems far off, but if we work together, that future is a riveting possibility. Yeah! In fact, just today I had a conversation with some guys online. The starting post was

"Most of you will die from the effects of climate change."

It was on an anonymous community where hundreds of people post every day, and I decided to take part in the discussion as well as read some of the responses.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the main emotions people had were "OK hooligan, go back to the looney bin." That response really offends me, anyway. I mean, it's not a question of possibility at this point. If people do not change, it will happen, and people do not seem to understand that at all. You can't just ignore that in favor of your saccharine delusion that as long as you get to live the way you want to, everything will be fine and dandy.

I promise I'm not getting too off-topic, but I'll bring it back home now.

The reason why we keep having these problems is because of our parent's laziness. That's right, it's not that the youth has all the power to change things- the generation who willingly and happily passed on all their problems to their children is largely at fault. Think about it- I've talked to a lot of people 40+, and they all have "accepted" that the world is the way it is and there's nothing that they can do to change it. They've stopped trying because they know that the prime of their life is over and they aren't responsible anymore, apparently. It's a huge pattern that I see everywhere, and it's really ridiculous because honestly, our only purpose in being born is to secure and invent the future as an optimal world for the next generation to live in.

I know that it's my responsibility as a youth, but a huge percentage of the population is these older people who are so closed-minded and delusional. Clearly, it's up to us to re-invent selflessness for the benefit of tomorrow.

haha tl;dr sorry

-Irene

a lot of things

Over the break, there have been many things on my mind.

I'll start with a little response to the video gaming TED talk we listened to a while ago. I talked about it with some people, and we all decided that the one thing that we can't make a part of life is the instant and ever-present gratification that we get in games after completing tasks. A game can tell you exactly how well you did something and always gives you an oppertunity to improve. It can gaurantee us a brighter and more exciting story if we do well, which is something that never happens in the uncertainty of real life. We even have real people who are also online to tell us that they appreciate what we do, which makes the gameverse seem even more real. I think it's the breaking of the fourth wall that really makes the games so addicting- imagine having a huge place full of like minded people set on making friends and becoming better at something. That sounds like the ideal workplace, right? That's probably why everyone spends so much time gaming.

During the break I watched a movie that I'd been wanting to see, "Capitalism: a Love Story," which is really just what it sounds like. I love the films that Micheal Moore produces, because they shine a bright and revealing light upon things that we all experience and maybe are a little concerned about, but don't think we can fix. I think his films (especially this one) are here to show us that the power to change things really is and always will be in the minds of the people. That's a similar theme to the change that we hope to experience in the public school system, but I digress. This film really enlightened me to many things that I hadn't even thought about. It bravely and boldly explores the content and flaws or our country, highlighting the disappearance of the middle class.

Another documentary which similarly calls for reform is "Food Inc." I really enjoyed watching that. I was already aware of many of the things it talks about, but it was great to have them all put into perspective and analyzed. I would recommend this film to everyone, especially those who are adamant about their lifestyles.

Both films clearly represent the need for reform in this country, and call for simple changes in the population's lifestyle in order to make their dreams a reality.

I'm sleeping all the time lately.

Oh hey I have a great song:

more stupidity

Alright. I need to post another blog this week since I found this article. There's a very enlightening video within it, which is 15 minutes long so I don't expect my few readers to listen to the whole thing. However, in the first four minutes you can see the facts in statistics about the irrational and hateful prejudice towards atheists in the United States, a religious country.

The narrator of the video is a very passionate atheist, which you can see immediately and throughout the video. He uses very striking facts about our society and people to show the terrible things many of us inflict unto our children by telling them lies about religion.

It's very bold, this video, and it does not hesitate to get right down to the facts. I really admire the narrator for that, because looking at what we're dealing with it is quite obviously no time to beat around the bush.

I am an atheist. I always have been. And though my parents are/were no sort of conservative christians, they still told me what was "right" about their religion and discouraged my adventuring into other religions and values. This is something that I very much resent, especially from a religion that I have grown to detest. It was childish of my parents to do this and while I do not hold it against them, I wish that they had given me a choice, because I cannot remember a single time in my life when I believed any of the far-fetched lies that were shoved down my throat about religion. I know that I've talked about this before, but it's this kind of evidence of prejudice and stupidity (and, as mentioned in the video, bigotry) that we need to address.

Let's go back in time a bit. Now, while it's undeniable that religion brought good things to our society, it has brought far more bad things. Looking to the middle ages, we see that religion had almost no positive effects. People lived their lives terrified of divine judgement, artists did not venture from traditional and bland religious artwork for centuries, and many innocent people were killed in ignorant fear. The crusades represent a huge and undeniable relation between catholicism and violence that is still true today. The Jews were prosecuted for a very long time as well, even though they believed in the same god as the Catholics and did not bring anything negative to society, in fact just the opposite. I could go on, but the fact is everyone knows, or rather should know, these truths about the atrocities that god-fearing people have brought and continue to bring to the world.

I mean, look at this country. When it was founded, it was clearly meant to be a country in which religion played no part. We didn't want to have a government that was at all similar to the monarchy we were under. Obviously, this dream is not yet realized. Why do we allow one group of people to have so much influence over all of us? Why are atheists, the neutrals of the group, also the most hated? Atheists are proven to be far more intelligent than their religious counterparts. Is it because Americans fear what is different and advantageous? Haha, I don't want to start sounding like a bigot myself. Well, moving on.

One thing which I found to strike especially true about the video is to NOT TELL OUR CHILDREN LIES ANYMORE. Why do we toy with children this way? Admittedly it's fun to have them believe in things like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, but we give them a choice in this. We don't force them to believe in and worship these idols weekly or year round. And most often children grow out of these things. But with religion, children aren't given a choice. They aren't given straight answers or proof, and they're told to deny logic and reason if favor of some huge lie, and they really pay the price. Just look at the statistics pertaining to criminals and their religions as well as child abuse.

It's just another thing that we cannot allow to continue! I'd really like to hear your opinions on this as well as any comments on the article or video.