Theme Of Lies My Teacher Told Me

In, Lies my Teacher Told Me, by James Loewen, many different important points are made about how the history textbook industry is corrupt, telling lies, or not telling the whole truth to the young readers. This should be very evident to most people, since textbooks spanning from elementary to high school often tell different pieces of information, and sometimes, complete opposite of those pieces of information. For years, history textbooks have been corrupted by the economically elite, and “teach” children information that will enable them to turn into perfect, radical patriotic, citizens. The main goal of textbooks is to make America out to look like the perfect nation who has never done anything wrong, and is better than all the other countries. …show more content…
Loewen shows how US History books only focus on the good parts of people to make them seem like “heros”. For Helen Keller, they only show her early life, and how she went from being blind and deaf, to being able to read, write and speak. In her later life, she becomes a strong believer in communism. The authors of textbooks and the media only focus on the good part of her life, the beginning, to be an inspiration to children. Woodrow Wilson is also revered as one of the greatest presidents in United States history, but textbooks leave out that he was extremely racist and a white supremacist. He segregated the national government and even went to war with Russia, which is hardly ever spoken about. The knowledge that Helen Keller was a communist, and that she encouraged the idea of the USSR, would probably be one of the biggest surprises to a lot of people, because we are only taught the information that is encouraging. Many people would be surprised to see that textbooks also cover up the atrocities that President Wilson pursued throughout his presidency, because history tries to convince us that each President was