Lies My Teacher Told Me Analysis

In chapter 11 of James Loewens novel “Lies My Teacher Told Me” the author describes the interesting concept of textbook writers not acknowledging information in textbooks that would reflect American action in an inferior way. This creates a bias learning environment with students under the patriotic and passive understanding that the United States are superior and can’t do any wrong. With the notion that change will happen freely.
This idea brings us back to the chapters’ title being “Progress is our most important product” which relates back to this concept because students are being poorly educated without knowing, these biases make students fall under the impression that the United States is superior to any other countries. Because they are taught from educators that generally are not aware of misinterpretations of events in the textbooks. Without our youth acknowledging our nations wrongdoings, it is hard to progress because the students will believe that it is okay to remain stagnant and be under the impression that our nation will naturally progress. A quote from the reading that describes this perfectly is “Most Americans remained optimistic about the nation’s future. They were convinced that their free institutions, their great natural wealth,

In fact, most textbooks are written by freelance authors. Who usually are not required to have a degree in the field of history. Which would seem rather important considering the subject matter. Also, readers rarely question the background experience of the authors and assume their credibility. Another issue is the fact that authors rarely credit where the information for the textbook information is formed leaving the educators and students to assume that information is accurate. When some information is often left out or construed to favor