After reading this chapter, I have no choice but agree with the Author in his assessment on how the text books that American children have been using for generation, provide them of an incomplete and unrealistic view of history. For some children history is “a boring subject, full of old stories about old people” (my 5th grader cousin’s opinion); Views like this are the result of the ambiguous and confusing information found on text book.
On textbooks, the image of American historical figures, have been objectified to a point that they lost authenticity; the people written about on those pages have become nothing more, than fictional characters. In other words, they undergo the process that James W Loewen, calls “heroification”. A process not just turn people into perfect heroes that could do no wrong; but also steals their humanity. …show more content…
For them is the same as listening to an old and boring fairy tale that hold no interest and had nothing to do with them. Children cannot empathize with the unrealistic images portrayed on textbooks because there is not a humanistic factor connecting those heroes’ life and actions with the life and actions of the children learning about them a clear example of this is Loewen statement: “Students poke fun at the goody-goodiest of them all by telling Helen Keller jokes. In so doing, schoolchildren are not poking cruel fun at a disabled person, they are deflating a pretentious symbol that is too good to be real.” (p. 29). If we were to analyze this statement it is obvious that Loewen used Helen Keller as an example because, for most students, her early life is awed inspiring; however, her adult life is so shrouded in secrecy and plagued with incomplete information that most students lost interest in what it seems to be an incomplete fairy
On textbooks, the image of American historical figures, have been objectified to a point that they lost authenticity; the people written about on those pages have become nothing more, than fictional characters. In other words, they undergo the process that James W Loewen, calls “heroification”. A process not just turn people into perfect heroes that could do no wrong; but also steals their humanity. …show more content…
For them is the same as listening to an old and boring fairy tale that hold no interest and had nothing to do with them. Children cannot empathize with the unrealistic images portrayed on textbooks because there is not a humanistic factor connecting those heroes’ life and actions with the life and actions of the children learning about them a clear example of this is Loewen statement: “Students poke fun at the goody-goodiest of them all by telling Helen Keller jokes. In so doing, schoolchildren are not poking cruel fun at a disabled person, they are deflating a pretentious symbol that is too good to be real.” (p. 29). If we were to analyze this statement it is obvious that Loewen used Helen Keller as an example because, for most students, her early life is awed inspiring; however, her adult life is so shrouded in secrecy and plagued with incomplete information that most students lost interest in what it seems to be an incomplete fairy