Teaching what really happened How to avoid the tyranny of textbooks and get students excited about doing history

Review by Choice Review

According to Loewen, social studies textbooks tend to portray the US as wonderful. Unfortunately, he contends these texts advance ethnocentrism. As a result, he urges teachers in grades 4-12 to focus on the problem of racism. His hope is that the teachers will allow the students to grow into engaged citizens who will shape enlightened policies. With this aim, Loewen devotes the first four chapters of this book to explanations of how conventional social studies instruction prevents students from developing critical thinking skills even though the study of history should sharpen these abilities. The remaining six chapters suggest how teachers can introduce problematic issues such as cultural imperialism, slavery, and racial segregation. Some suggestions include asking students to teach topics such as the women's movement or having different students explain parts of a book to the class and uniting the descriptions in a discussion. Readers interested in similar works might consult The Line between Us by Bill Bigelow (2006) or Revolutionizing Education, ed. by Julio Cammarota and Michelle Fine (2008). Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate, research, and professional collections. J. Watras University of Dayton

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.

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Review by Booklist Review

This lively, useful, but very slanted work is a follow-up to Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me (1995). Since it is part of the Multicultural Education series, it contains the usual platitudes and clichés covering the value and goals of multiculturalism. Loewen writes in a preachy, condescending style that highlights his left-of-center political bias. He criticizes the use of textbook content as a weapon that justifies or excuses racial segregation, yet it is evident that he wants history teachers to devise their own weapons to support his view of what really happened. Still, if educators can look beyond his overblown rhetoric, Loewen offers some effective criticisms of current teaching practices and provides some sensible alternatives. He asserts that many history teachers are overly dependent on the use of textbooks, often to compensate for their own lack of content knowledge. He proposes interesting methods for stimulating critical thinking and class discussions. Teachers will find much that is tiresome, but much that is valuable as well.--Freeman, Jay Copyright 2009 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Library Journal Review

Loewen follows up his best-selling Lies My Teacher Told Me and Lies Across America with a guide targeted to American history teachers at the secondary level. Loewen contends that U.S. history textbooks, in order to avoid controversy and sell as many copies as possible in all regions of the country, gloss over controversial topics like slavery or provide wrong information. He writes that the textbook should be only a starting point for examining U.S. history and learning historiography, critical thinking, and what really happened. Loewen details how to deal with what he considers the most glaring poorly or incorrectly taught subjects in American history: e.g., how and when people got to the Americas, why Europe won, the $24 myth, slavery, why the South seceded, and the nadir of race relations, 1890-1940. Loewen explains how correctly teaching history makes students more effective citizens. Verdict Essential for school administrators and all teachers and professors of U.S. history, this will also be useful for parents of school-age children.-Mark Bay, Univ. of the Cumberlands Lib., Williamsburg, KY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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