James lowen author of lies my teacher told me shares some interesting facts that probably did not make it into your history classroom, for instance, by show of hands how many of you know the name m

artin Luther king? (what was he known for?) A minister and strong advocate for civil rights. But did you know that he was not faithful? When Europeans first came to America they believed bathing was unhealthy, leaving the Indians to teach them to bathe. So all of the stories that you were told about Indians dying of disease were due to the unsanitary ways of the Europeans. Who were the first settlers in America? Any ideas? The first settlers in America were black, from Africa, becoming enslaved when Europeans came and took over. What about Abraham Lincoln? Anyone? He was a slave owner himself and made the comment that if he could save the union without freeing slaves he would. Along these same lines there are countless racism issues that have been overlooked and ignored, so many that I cannot even go into. I am sure that these facts are new to most of you, they were to me. So I guess the next thing to talk about are possible reasons such knowledge was left out. It is in part due to textbooks in general.

Money is issue that can dictate what goes in a history book. For example it costs millions of dollars to publish books, if there is something offensive there is a good chance a school will not use the text in the classroom. In a book called public opinion and the teaching of history in the u.s. pierce tells us that some things are left out due to censorship, meaning some things are to vulgar are graphic to be told. He goes even further to tell us In Alabama the law used to require textbooks to avoid anything racial that would cast a bad reflection on the people of the state. You could see how money might be an issue. Lowen suggests that part of the problem is lack of review done by the history profession. Lowen goes on to say that history b

Some topics in this essay:
Abraham Lincoln, Columbus Day, Christopher Columbus, Shirley Engle, Europeans America, Helen Keller, , history books, Anne Sullivan, left history books, lies teacher told, strong advocate, history classroom, lies teacher, left due, left history, goes history, money issue, settlers america, killed people,