Lies My Teacher Told Me, response to CH 11/12

High school students hate history, says Lowen, but what he means is that they hate high school history because it presents an oppressive ideology. They love history outside of that mould, as productions of historic fiction or museum presentations. Perhaps they are attracted to the natural drama of historic narratives. Outside of school maybe they can feel what they want to feel, and think what they want to think as they interpret events. The major problems of textbooks are that they are racially, historically, mentally and pedagogically oppressive. This is not the intent of the authors or the publishers to be oppressive and ignorant, but to write a patriotic novel about America. That wouldn’t be as much of a problem in a more open marketplace of ideas, but as Lowen explains, history textbooks present a rather united front.

1. Racially, textbooks tend to project the American experience from the vantage point of the European settlers. Lowen cites many examples of how everyone wants to see themselves represented in history. If it is a Vermont text book, it better have something about Vermont in it if the board is to adopt the book. Likewise, students from non-dominant cultures want to be reflected in history. It’s not just vanity, it’s about having an imagined worth in history and hence the future.

Conversely, teachers should not leave non-dominant culture in the margins. The fear of leaving the status quo be is in one of Lowen’s best points, “teachers avoid controversy because they have not experienced it themselves in an academic setting.” Fear of controversy allows Sophistry to reign. The suggestion of Lowen’s claim is that by expanding the education of social studies teachers at universities and by broadening their real world experiences, they will improve their ability to deal with controversy and accommodate more points of view. As a teacher, I intend to use my experiences in university as more of a base-line for my high school students as far as the breadth and depth of content and inquiry I will be encouraging (bearing in mind developmental concerns).

2. According to Lowen, rifle through a textbook and it is full of bad facts and poor historical work. It’s not caused by a lack of expertise because there are professors and experts working on these books. The problem starts with the expectation that accuracy matters less than topics included.

To straighten out this academic scoliosis, the teacher must move away from objectivity and toward empirically based subjectivity. Creating an informed perspective and labeling it thus requires enriched content. The main point of Drake and Nelson is to develop those empirical skills and to ratchet up the drama of uncertainty. I would allow students to read a primary source and then use forensic principles to make arguments about it.

3. Mentally, textbooks create an illusion of progress without discussing causality or the limits of being able to accurately explain events. The result is that illusion of progress suggests that there is nothing that can or should be done by the individual. A lack of discussion about causality suggests that even if the individual did want to impact history, they would not know how. This point manifests most clearly in the way that this generation has sought to protest war. Specifically, protesters create the image of protest without using critical mass to achieve goals.

Lowen seems to think that dangerous ideas are not dangerous relative to content in the media. As a teacher, I would not necessarily personalize my experiences as much as I would run with the examples available in history.

4. Pedagogically, textbooks primarily employ rote memorization and ask superficial questions. In this way, students love how easy history is when there are six to ten other academic subjects competing for student attention.

The objective is to move away from objectivity and toward empirically based subjectivity, that is, have an informed perspective and label it thus. The main point of Drake and Nelson is to develop those empirical skills and to increase the drama of uncertainty. Again, I intend to use my university level courses as a base-line for types of inquiry—retrofitted for teenagers. I would probably run the class more like an English class in terms of the ratio of reading, discussion and writing due.