Lies My Teacher Told me Essay

There are many times that you may be sitting at the kitchen table reading an article. Most of the time youre going to be asking yourself as youre reading the article, what is the writer trying to say to me? Another question you could ask yourself is what isnt the author telling me? In chapter ten, Down the Memory Hole: The Disappearance of the Recent Past in the book Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen you will discover that you are not told everything that is important to you and your generation. Loewen uses several articles to help back up his opinions on the topic. Loewen believes that our recent history remains pretty much invisible in our history textbooks until decades after because it is so recent and we cannot know how historians may view certain historical events once they reach the point of detachment from the event. In Lies My Teacher Told Me, Loewen uses sources such as a quote from Hermann Goering-Nuremburg Trials and Will the Real Al-Qaida Please Stand Up?, an article written by Jason Burke to support his ideas. Hopefully information from these two articles paired with Loewens thoughts in Lies My Teacher Told Me will help you answer the question of what the author is or is not telling you.

In Lies My Teacher Told Me Loewens main message to his audience is that most of your history textbooks leave out very important information that could be useful to the reader. But could Loewen himself be a victim of this trend? In the first page of the chapter Loewen uses a quote from Hermann Goering, Nuremberg, April 18, 1946:

Of course the people do not want war.But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them that they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism.

Although Loewen includes this quote, there is something he doesnt include; the rest of the quote. The rest of the quote reads, and for exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country. I find it very interesting that Loewen leaves this part of the quote out of his writings since he is always preaching about how things are left out of history textbooks to protect us from what we dont want to hear. The reason Loewen leaves this out could be that he just finds it unimportant but to the contrary, I believe it has a larger meaning behind it. One of the theories I have is that because it is talking about exposing the country to danger people might relate it to the recent past of when George W. Bush was president. People might relate it to 9/11 and the troops being sent to Iraq and those who liked Bush as the president may take offence to the statement of leaders exposing the country to danger. So Loewen might have chosen to leave this out because if he offends his readers with the recent past that they might feel strongly about they may be enraged and have trouble finishing reading his work.

My other theory about why Loewen failed to include the rest of this quote is that he believes in denouncing pacifists for lack of patriotism just like he included in the part of the quote, but perhaps Loewen does not agree with criticizing the leaders for exposing the country to danger. Although there has been a lack of patriotism from time to time, he may not want to include it and influence peoples ideas when criticizing how leaders have run the country or helped destroy it.

What Loewen did use of the quote in chapter ten of Lies My Teacher Told Me was very useful to the reader in explaining maybe some reasons why textbooks leave out the recent past and also why teachers in classrooms dont discuss it. Loewen also includes in the chapter that even if the recent past were to be included in textbooks most teachers dont get to teach students to the very end of a textbook so the information wouldnt even be used, so that is also a problem. The quote was said by Herman Goering to a prison psychologist and U.S. Army Captain Gustave M. Gilbert while they were in Goerings prison cell. While Loewen does use that quote, in leaving out part of that effective quote Loewen goes against what he has been telling us all along, especially about leaving out the recent past when people should be aware of the full quote.

Loewen goes into detail more about specific events that have happened in the recent past such as the September 11th terrorist attack. He includes a quote from Jason Burke, author of Will the Real Al-Qaida Please Stand Up that reads, None of the reasons as anything to do with our freedom, liberty and democracy but everything to do with US policies and actions in the Muslim world. This quote from Burke was used very well in Loewens reading because it helps define the reason why our country was attacked by terrorist. But also like Loewen has been saying, going into such detail about why the terrible even took place could even cause controversy in the classroom. Students will be asking questions such as Why do they hate our freedom? Why dont they change instead of attacking us? Students always have the never-ending whys that would put pressure on the teachers to provide an answer for them. But either way what Loewen is saying is that an explanation for what happened needs to be addressed. This is important so that along with what the teachers explanation is the children can think critically and come up with their own answers to their questions about the situation.

There are many mistakes that historians make when it comes to events of the recent past. Although they do offer quite a few more pages when it comes to the recent past of the attacks on September 11th than any other events of the recent past, they do not offer adequate or fully truthful statements. Although now it is years later since September 11th and times are changing and soon there may be adequate information on this event of the recent past since as you look back on other events as they grow more distant from the present they gain more pages in history textbooks we should not wait any longer to include information that may be pertinent to students understanding the event and why it has happened.

Mary Habeck is the author of Knowing the Enemy, a book written to explain Islamic militant thinking so that you can get inside of the head of the enemy a little bit. Jason Burke mentions her book in his article Will the Real Al Quaida Please Stand Up and talks about how although useful, she made a mistake when writing the book. Jason Burke says, Though Israel is mentioned 15 times, Iraq is not mentioned at all. This is astonishing, given the critical role that the war in Iraq has played in fomenting support for the radicals. He continues to talk about how the author or her publisher must have thought that the question of Iraqs war, along with so many US soldiers being killed while deported would be too much for the reader to process when reading. This brings to mind why she even wrote the book. If someone is going to write about the enemy and their thoughts the reader should know what they are getting their selves into and the author should not hold back if they are really trying to get their point across.

The Memory Hole is one of my favorite chapters that James W. Loewen has written in Lies My Teacher Told Me, and though he explained things excellently about the recent past and why teachers dont get to discussing September 11th, he left a great deal of important information out and also poorly worded quotes. Muslim says, Muslims do not hate our freedom, but rather they hate our policies. Although if he was debating with someone this could be a great summary used to snipe your opponent, Loewen wrote a book and should have used the direct quote from Jason Burke in Will the Real Al Quaida Please Stand Up. It would have sounded more scholarly and professional had he said, None of the reasons has anything to do with our freedom, liberty and democracy but everything to do with US policies and actions in the Muslim world.

Also, as previously mentioned Loewen should have included the entire quote from Hermann Goering. It does not help him to argue that historians leave out tons of useful information, when in fact; he couldnt even include the very end of a quote. When one is that insistent on teaching needed information and the stuff that you are not told in history classes and goes ahead and writes a book on it, you expect the person to explain things to the same extent that he expects everyone else to. It makes you wonder what other information is Loewen leaving out in his writings and what other quotes is he protecting us from so that we may not become outraged and upset, because if we do we may not continue to read his works and obtain the bulk of his message to his readers. Although Loewen is an excellent writer, he could have given more credit to other authors instead of butchering their short quotes for the sake of the debate. Although Lies My Teacher Told Me makes a very understandable point he could have used more information to support his discussions.