Failing to educate: social class

If people’s mistakes and, reasons causing said mistakes in history aren’t portrayed completely for educational purposes then is history doomed to eventually repeat itself? The lower class is growing, middle class is shrinking and the upper class is making more money, which has been a pattern over the time frame the America’s existence. “Land of Opportunity” and “Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong”, both written by James W. Loewen contain brilliant insight to why some textbooks may be feeding students not necessarily false information but information irrelevant to the real issues most Americans face every day like unfair living conditions and opportunities due to social class. Mistakes, such as unfair distribution of wealth somewhat due to moving jobs overseas, make it hard for one to move up in ranks regarding social class. The social class issue in America goes much deeper than a deteriorating economy because, like Loewen says “opportunity is not equal in America”, which tends to be true due to factors like race, community, pay checks, and even inherent wealth of ones’ parents.
Social class needs to become more recognizable as a growing problem. If the masses understood the real reason why people are in the social class they are then more would fight to buy “American made goods” and fix our crippled social system. In “Lies my teacher taught me”, Loewen compares college level history courses to high school level history courses saying, “History professors in college often put routinely put down high school history courses”. Loewen in both essays shows how textbooks skew adolescent’s view of America’s history leaving out key points like working class strikes and real depictions ...

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...s citizens view them varies immensely. In a study, “55 percent of republicans blamed the poor for their poverty, while only 13 percent blamed the system for it; 68 percent of democrats, on the other hand, blamed the system, while only 5 percent blamed the poor”. The fact is one side will always blame the other if they don’t understand the other side, which is why adolescents need to be brought correct and relevant information in textbooks about social classes and how they function and who they are made up out of. Do we need a new system perhaps with new tax laws, new government leaders and new values, or can we fix what we have and make this country better for everyone. There will always be social classes in America but all citizens should be educated to know what each means and have the opportunity to strive to make their lives better, and their children’s as well.