1. Columbus Day
In the book Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen, he uses ways as well as examples from history and other books to help readers become informed of their true United States history. His purpose it to make us aware that some of the books that we have been reading and lessons that we have been taught are not telling us the exact truths that we need to be aware of. The book itself examines over 10 American history books and reveals every flaw, fabrication, and "sugar coated " story in each book. Heroification as well as race, slavery and social class is also brought to be a major issue in American history because text books try to avoid those topics as much as possible just like they try to avoid facts about the past as well as the recent past. It is a fact that history has become fabricated over the years so one would question the purpose of even having history being taught in schools. The unanswered questions are why do textbooks read by both children as well as adults resort to lies when teaching about American history? What are they trying to hide? Why aren't students taught about recent history? What is the real purpose of American history textbooks? And lastly why don't we ever speak on the future? With all the points Loewen made, I was able to get a better understanding of how history and authors work. Just by this book alone I was able to think further out of the box, not just about history itself but present day situations.
If anyone has ever attended a public school in the United States they'd most likely agree that they have once believed what teachers have taught them in their history class about Christopher Columbus "discovering " America. According to Loewen's book on page 19 he states that among the many flaws in history textbooks, the one that stands out above and beyond the rest heroification, which is according to him "A generative process that makes people over into heroes ".