Problems in teaching history - Essay Example

Consequently, the subject appears to be, not surprisingly, unloved by pupils. The given paper will discuss what is wrong with American history and why it appears to be false and really boring for students. Young people, who enter higher level institutions and start learning history there, usually become surprised, because many historical facts they were taught in school appear to be different. However, many people do not enter such establishments and many of those who do choose not to learn history.

They do not want to continue learning it, because schools do not usually accept discussions and debates. Thus, the discipline is turned into gathering of logically disconnected uninteresting facts, while a lot of remarkable ones are missed because they are unlikable. In order not to explain to students the facts, which are not very pleasant for American citizens, instructors prefer to exclude them. Therefore, pupils do not know about real events and, as they usually omit negative ones, they call there past “good old days”.

This automatically generates an opinion that America always acted properly, without any mistakes. Young people think that the United States is the best country in the world and other countries just envy and try to imitate its behavior. Believing that other countries are admiring the United States, young people become shocked, when something like the events of 9/11 happen. Suddenly, they got to know that many nations hate Americans, but can’t understand why, because did not learn real historical facts.

The history is false and that is why it is uninteresting. James Loewen explains: The same things that make history false are what makes it boring. Many high school history teachers are teaching out of field. That is, they don’t have a degree in history or a related discipline. And they usually aren’t even interested in history. So they