Education In The USA

I thought the discussion we had in class about the affirmative action policy in American universities raised some very interesting points. One of the recurring points that were was made was that universities needed to consider the fact that different students had different educational opportunities in school, because in today's society, the education one public school provided can be absolute junk compared to the education provided in another school. Also, I had conversation with a woman I work with today, who said that she was homeschooling her kids now, because of how horrible the teachers and schools were where she lived. She also kept mentioning how lucky I was to be going to Hoover, and that my parents and I did not have to deal with what they passed off as education where she lived. This difference in the quality of education is completely unfair to all students, and is dragging down the whole educational system. As most people know, the United States' educational system has been falling behind the rest of the world for years, and desperately needs to be changed. I think that the US should look to Finland as an example. It may come as a surprise to some people that Finland has consistently been rated with the top educational system in the world. However, in the 1960's, this was not the case. Finland's educational system was a mess, and the quality of  the education it proved showed it. In the late '60s, the Finns decided that all of their schools and school systems needed to not be competitive with each other, but to be equal. Finland completely reformed its educational system, so that every school was as close to equal as possible , and that child was given the same education and same opportunity for success. 50 years later, that system, which completely goes against the American theory that schools should be competitive, has proved itself to be the more effective.
While I know that it would never be possible for every public school in the country to be completely equal, I think that the states should at least try to give every student the same opportunity for success. For example, in Alabama, along with many other states, the schools with the higher test scores are rewarded, either with more money, more equipment, or both. While this system is great for improving competition between schools, it does little to help the schools who are not as good. The schools who need to be improved so that they can be competitive are the ones that really need the money, so with this system, they can never improve, because the money they need is given to the schools that are better than them. This is just one example of the way our educational system is flawed today, among the many others out in our country.
Instead of being obsessed with competition, like America is today, we should focus on improving every school, instead of rewarding the ones who are already ahead and leaving the rest behind. America should put education as one of its top priorities, because education is nothing but preparing our country and its citizens for the future. College admissions cannot be truly equal until every student has the same opportunities to be admitted, which will not happen until all of our public schools are improved, either by actually receiving the funding it needs to improve, hiring teachers who know what they're doing, and anything else that needs to be done in order to prepare children for the future.

Post 4

Lies My Teacher Told Me had several strengths and very few, if any, weaknesses. One if its strengths was that it took topics that were commonly misunderstood by high school students, and explained each individually with plenty of sources to back up what it was saying. Lies also made a point to explain that what historians know about history is not concrete, meaning that our understanding of what happened in history is always changing, and that things accepted as fact one day could be disproved the next. It also did an excellent job of trying to explain history from other points of view besides the Europeans'. For example, it explained parts of Native American history before the Europeans arrived, and how they were affected, instead of just portraying the view that Europeans just discovered the New World and were basically the first ones there. Loewen obviously did his research. He read over 12 US history textbooks to help prepare him for this book, and consistently cited them. Loewen used both primary and secondary sources in this book, but he used primary sources mostly to back up what he was saying about secondary sources, which were mostly textbooks. He was not biased at all throughout this book. He tried to say the truth about whoever he was writing about, no matter how bad it was. He also stuck to his basic purpose if showing where textbooks have gone wrong and suggesting ways for them to get better. So, overall, Lies My Teacher Told Me was a very interesting and well researched book, and I would recommend it to other readers. It enhanced my understanding of politics in America, because it showed how both intentionally and unintentionally biased many politicians are, all because of their misunderstanding of American history. It also helped me understand more about how history has shaped the way American politics work today.

Post 3

In the second half of  Lies, Loewen still picks many examples of themes and time periods that history textbooks have gotten wrong and tells why the textbooks are wrong. However, in the last couple chapters, Loewen explains why textbooks are published with all if this misleading information, and what the effect of the lies in our nation's textbooks have on students.
Loewen describes how the textbooks are mostly written by knowledgeable historians and authors, yet the textbooks are continually taking the view that America is always the good guy and never made any mistakes, which is a view that no decent historian could support with real facts. The reasons why historians write these blatantly wrong textbooks is because in order for them to make money, the textbooks have to get approved and adopted by school boards. This means that the school boards have to like what they read, and talking about how social class plays a huge roll in history or how the US may have made a mistake in invading Iraq would not be much liked by nationalist school boards and therefore not approved.
Loewen also describes the effects that these textbooks have on students. One of the most obvious is that students are learning incorrect information about history. The other is that since these textbooks are written to be absolutely without a doubt, and that most textbooks want a straightforward plot line of history and will do a lot to get one, the textbooks are just boring, and are a huge reason why history is consistently rated as the least favorite class among students. 

Post 2

      So far, I have read half of Lies My Teacher Told Me, and it has been fairly interesting. It has jumped time periods from Helen Keller, to Columbus, to slavery, and so on, but it has been able to connect all of these seemingly random topics to an overall theme of how teachers and textbooks only teach the feel-good, nice side of history. For example, almost everyone knows the story of how Helen Keller, a deaf and blind girl, overcame all odds with the help of her teacher Anne Sullivan and learned how to live with her disability. Teachers everywhere preach, "Look what she accomplished," yet, they forget to actually tell what she accomplished. Loewen reminds his readers that Helen Keller became a radical Socialist, and supported poor and oppressed people everywhere, because she identified with them as a result of her being deaf and blind. She heavily supported the communist USSR, and at the time, was a very controversial and at times notorious public figure. Loewen explains how the public view of Keller, like many other people in American history, was altered and hero-fied by the media, textbooks, and teachers to the point where no one knows the true story of Helen Keller's life; all they know is some vague, feel-good story of how a girl overcame serious disabilities, and nothing about her radical views or what she fought for after she graduated college.  
     Loewen also describes how the perception of other parts and figures of American history have been twisted to fit into a very Euro-centristic view. He points out how most textbooks show a very European view of the first Thanksgiving: that the Pilgrims provided all the food and were dressed in their very best attire, while the Native Americans showed up barely dressed and provided the bare minimum. He also shows how some textbooks take such a Euro-centered view that they say that slavery was good for the slaves. His main focus during the first half of the book is how the perception of history has been altered to show the Europeans as the good guys, no matter what, and the Native Americans and Africans as almost second class human beings. Textbooks and teachers are making excuses for European actions instead of actually telling students the truth.
    I predict that the second half of the book will be much like the first half: that Loewen will continue to identify specific instances in American history that have been extremely skewed and altered in textbooks that are in the classrooms, and use real evidence and clues to show the flawed reality of history instead of the fairy tale version that shows all American heroes as flawless, amazing people.

Post 1

     I have decided to read Lies My Teacher Told Me, by James W. Loewen, for my Summer Reading Assignment. Many reasons went into my choosing this book. One, the title sounded very interesting. Honestly, I like being able to prove people wrong whenever I think they are saying something that is incorrect or maybe just dumb. So, this book made sense for me to choose, because the title suggests that after reading the book, I would have the knowledge to prove wrong some of the false things people say about the past. Also, the back cover of Lies drew me in and intrigued me to the point where I wanted to read what the book had to say. I agreed when the back cover said that "Americans have lost touch with their history", but I did not really know to what extent that statement was true, and I wanted to discover how true it was. Finally, I decided to pick this book, because of the reviews I heard about it from people who read it last year. They all said that it was worth reading, because it gave them a new perspective on American history in a way that was very interesting and made them want to keep reading. So, between the title, the back cover, and reviews from my friends, I expected to learn a lot more about American history, and more specifically, where our society has gone wrong in their understanding of how America really developed.
     The author, James W. Loewen, seems qualified and trustworthy.  He has a PhD from Harvard University, has taught at 3 universities over the past 30 years, and has written many books and won multiple awards his books, including the American Book Award and the Oliver C. Cox Anti-Racism Award of the American Sociological Association for just Lies My Teacher Told Me. Loewen was also able to successfully defend his textbook, Mississippi: Conflict and Change before a US District Court after the Mississippi Textbook Purchasing Board rejected it for use in the state school system because it focused on racial issues in a way that was considered too controversial. This case was considered by the American Library Association to be a historic First Amendment Case. So, Loewen has authentic expertise, and I expect the book to be unbiased. Loewen has proven that he is not afraid to talk about things that seem too controversial, and that he will not sugarcoat any issues in history to slant the readers to inaccurately favor one side over another.