Teaching What Really Happened: How to Avoid the Tyranny of Textbooks & Get Students Excited About Doing History
by James W. Loewen
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In this follow-up to his landmark bestseller, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, Loewen once again takes history textbooks to task for their perpetuations of myth and their lack of awareness of today's multicultural student audience (not to mention the astonishing number of "facts" they just got plain wrong). "How did people get here?" "Why did Europe win?" In Teaching What Really Happened, Loewen goes beyond the usual textbook-dominated social show more studies course to illuminate a wealth of intriguing, often hidden facts about America's past. Calling for a new way to teach history, this book will help teachers move beyond traditional textbooks to tackle difficult but important topics like conflicts with Native Americans, slavery, and racial oppression. Throughout, Loewen shows time and again how "teaching what really happened" not only connects better with all kinds of students, it better prepares those students to be tomorrow's citizens. show lessTags
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In 2018, James Loewen revised his "Teaching What Really Happened" (2010), the bestselling, go-to resource for social studies and history teachers wishing to break away from standard textbook retellings of the past. The accomplished and courageous author passed away August 18, 2021. A great historian managed to give voice to the facts in spite of the century of "Lost Cause" parades, the Newt Gingrich weaponization of faux history, and the travesty of Trump.
This edition adds a new chapter entitled “Truth", made necessary by the bent narratives spun by the feudal lords of Dixie made into campaigns of ignorance by Trump followers. Loewen spells out how extremist, and traditional sources, can use social show more media to distort current events and the historical record. To my surprise, this corrective to the frankly criminally boring 800+ page "history" textbooks used in America is only 288 pages.
Publishers Note: "Helping students understand what really happened in the past will empower them to use history as a tool to argue for better policies in the present. Our society needs engaged citizens now more than ever, and this book offers teachers concrete ideas for getting students excited about history while also teaching them to read critically."
We still face the failure of Reconstruction -- it was prematurely abolished by State Governments after the Civil War. show less
In 2018, James Loewen revised his "Teaching What Really Happened" (2010), the bestselling, go-to resource for social studies and history teachers wishing to break away from standard textbook retellings of the past. The accomplished and courageous author passed away August 18, 2021. A great historian managed to give voice to the facts in spite of the century of "Lost Cause" parades, the Newt Gingrich weaponization of faux history, and the travesty of Trump.
This edition adds a new chapter entitled “Truth", made necessary by the bent narratives spun by the feudal lords of Dixie made into campaigns of ignorance by Trump followers. Loewen spells out how extremist, and traditional sources, can use social show more media to distort current events and the historical record. To my surprise, this corrective to the frankly criminally boring 800+ page "history" textbooks used in America is only 288 pages.
Publishers Note: "Helping students understand what really happened in the past will empower them to use history as a tool to argue for better policies in the present. Our society needs engaged citizens now more than ever, and this book offers teachers concrete ideas for getting students excited about history while also teaching them to read critically."
We still face the failure of Reconstruction -- it was prematurely abolished by State Governments after the Civil War. show less
Valuable resource for teachers. But so important for the rest of us. Why is it so hard to tell the truth about the past? Let's do the work, read primary sources and get it right.
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24+ Works 11,266 Members
Social scientist and professor James Loewen is an outspoken critic of "feel-good" history. In his book "Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American Textbook Got Wrong" (1996) he debunks the myths and exposes the omissions he feels are taught in the nation's high schools. Disturbed by his college students' lack of knowledge of history and show more concerned about minority misconceptions, Loewen spent two years at the Smithsonian analyzing 12 leading history texts and 11 years writing this best-selling indictment of history teaching. Loewen believes that controversy has been removed from classrooms in favor of blind patriotism. "Any history book that celebrates, rather than examines, our heritage has the by-product, intended or not, of alienating all those in the 'out group', those who have not become affluent, and denies them a tool for understanding their own group's lack of success." Loewen's other books include ""Mississippi: Conflict and Change" (1974, rev. 1980), a revisionist history of the state written with a coalition of students and faculty at Tougaloo College, Mississippi; "Mississippi Chinese: Between Black and White" (1971), a study of this minority's role in society; "Social Science in the Courtroom" (1983), based on the author's experiences as an expert witness in civil rights cases and "The Truth About Columbus: A Subversively True Poster Book For A Dubiously Celebratory Occasion" (1992). In addition, the author is a frequent contributor to professional publications, sometimes under the pseudonym James Lyons. James W. Loewen was born February 6, 1942 in Decatur, Illinois and was educated at Carleton College (B.A., 1964) and Harvard University (M.A, 1967; Ph.D., 1968). He was a sociologist and teacher specializing in race relations at Tougaloo College, Mississippi from 1968 to 1974. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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- Teaching What Really Happened: How to Avoid the Tyranny of Textbooks & Get Students Excited About Doing History
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