Untruth American History - Research Paper Example

This essay, therefore, addresses the effects had by the untruths taught in pre-college History as addressed by James Loewen in his book titled Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. These include issues such as; simple mindedness thinking, inability to illuminate the present with the past, and the misconceived notion that problems in the past either have a possible solution or already solved (Loewen 333). Among the problems experienced with the study of History in this day and age especially in pre-college education according to Loewen, is simple minded thinking among most students (Loewen 334).

Pre-college History continues to reinforce simple mindedness among students because it approaches historical events in a shallow way. This leads to students learning misconstrued versions of what happened in the past society. As a result, many are unable to correlate current events in society with past events. This thinking undermines the progress of society as a whole. A weighty topic affected in History is the American Dream ideology (Carlin). History lessons view the American Dream from a narrow minded thinking, whereby, students receive teachings about the ideal expectations propagated by this ideology.

Seldom are deviations from these expectations addressed by History textbooks. In the end, students’ approach the matter from a narrow minded point of view. They are not able to explain actions perceived as deviations from the American Dream, for example, corruption, the get-rich mentality among other things. Therefore, if these students decide to pursue History at a college level, their new lecturers have no choice but to broaden the way students think about certain key issues in History. Therefore, students must begin to question previous teachings and get on board with the new teachings.

This might prove damaging to some students who opt to abandon the course, therefore, misconceived notions remain instilled within them, and society suffers from this. Secondly, Loewen posits that pre-college students learn in their history classes misconceived notions, for example, not using the past to illuminate the present (Loewen 336). As a result, most History students are unable to relate current situations with similar situations, which occurred in the past. Meaning, most students are unable to figure some problems indeed existed in the past, for example, discrimination based on gender.

This is because, when these students try to compare the current society in which they live in with the past society, the two worlds seem irreconcilable to them. As a result, most of them take for granted the sacrifices made by those living in the past society who overcame some of the problems in the society. This might prove catastrophic to society as a whole because of the adverse effects, which might emanate from the inability to learn from previous mistakes. Currently, people around the world remain keen on facilitating globalization.

This is because they understand the diverse range of benefits in store for them if the world would be able to operate as a single unit. Political, social and economic sectors all stand to benefit from globalization (An 763-87). However, negative implications might arise from globalization. Therefore, people must remain vigilant by identifying past situations, which might help foresee