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Teaching What Really Happened

How to Avoid the Tyranny of Textbooks and Get Students Excited About Doing History

Second Edition

James W. Loewen

Publication Date: September 7, 2018

Pages: 288

Series: Multicultural Education Series

Available Formats
PAPERBACK
ISBN: 9780807759486
$36.95
EBOOK
ISBN: 9780807777312
$36.95
Teaching What Really Happened 9780807759486
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  • Description
  • Author
  • Reviews
  • Contents

Description+

"The revised edition of Loewen’s book builds upon the first edition by applying these principles to contemporary circumstances. For example, a new chapter addresses post-truth politics and the Trump presidency. This makes Loewen’s work more valuable than ever for students, educators, and communities." —Teachers College Record

“Should be in the hands of every history teacher in the country.”— Howard Zinn

James Loewen has revised Teaching What Really Happened, the bestselling, go-to resource for social studies and history teachers wishing to break away from standard textbook retellings of the past. In addition to updating the scholarship and anecdotes throughout, the second edition features a timely new chapter entitled "Truth" that addresses how traditional and social media can distort current events and the historical record. Helping students understand what really happened in the past will empower them to use history as a tool to argue for better policies in the present.

Our society needs engaged citizens now more than ever, and this book offers teachers concrete ideas for getting students excited about history while also teaching them to read critically. It will specifically help teachers and students tackle important content areas, including Eurocentrism, the American Indian experience, and slavery.

Book Features:

  • An up-to-date assessment of the potential and pitfalls of U.S. and world history education.
  • Information to help teachers expect, and get, good performance from students of all racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds.
  • Strategies for incorporating project-oriented self-learning, having students conduct online historical research, and teaching historiography.
  • Ideas from teachers across the country who are empowering students by teaching what really happened.
  • Specific chapters dedicated to five content topics usually taught poorly in today’s schools.

Author+

James W. Loewen, distinguished lecturer for the Organization of American Historians, is the bestselling author of Lies My Teacher Told Me and Lies Across America. He taught race relations for 20 years at the University of Vermont and gives workshops for teacher groups around the United States. He has been an expert witness in more than 50 civil rights, voting rights, and employment cases. Visit the author’s website: sundown.tougaloo.edu/

Reviews+

"The revised edition of Loewen’s book builds upon the first edition by applying these principles to contemporary circumstances. For example, a new chapter addresses post-truth politics and the Trump presidency. This makes Loewen’s work more valuable than ever for students, educators, and communities." —Teachers College Record

“In the sequel to his bestseller, Lies My Teacher Told Me, James Loewen has crafted a critique of how history is being taught in public education that should be in the hands of every practicing and pre-service social studies teacher in the United States.”

—The History Teacher (from the first edition)

"Loewen challenges us to critically reflect on the essence of what social studies and history education is and what social studies and history educators do. Doing so can only improve the experiences our students have."

—The Social Studies (from the first edition)

"The author's recommendations on how to teach touchy topics to diverse classes are exceptional. His counsel on defining nationalism and ethnocentrism for young people is expert too. All along, the reader is not only reintroduced to critical knowledge that may have been forgotten as a result of time spent within an unproductive educational system, but is also sure to find new and transformative information. Even the trained professional must be reminded of what once was. This book does that and more."

—The Journal of Negro Education (from the first edition)

“As the cover indicates, textbooks are one of the barriers to genuine learning about history. Textbook publishers don't want to offend school boards. In some cases, this means that textbook writers must avoid telling the truth about historical events and historical personages…. After reading this book, I'm willing to declare myself a fan of James W. Loewen. It may be difficult to uncover historical truth in some cases, but I applaud Loewen for prioritizing it and showing the importance of historical truth for all of us.”

—Shomeret: The Masked Reviewer

"Loewen's book combines salt-of-the-earth wisdom with a moral imperative to create a more just society. We can start by cutting out the lies and telling kids the truth about the past. This book should be required reading for every history teacher in the land."
—Sam Wineburg, Margaret Jacks Professor of Education and (by courtesy) History, Stanford University

“As the cover indicates, textbooks are one of the barriers to genuine learning about history. Textbook publishers don't want to offend school boards. In some cases, this means that textbook writers must avoid telling the truth about historical events and historical personages…. After reading this book, I'm willing to declare myself a fan of James W. Loewen. It may be difficult to uncover historical truth in some cases, but I applaud Loewen for prioritizing it and showing the importance of historical truth for all of us.”
—Shomeret: The Masked Reviewer

Praise for the First Edition!

“Should be in the hands of every history teacher in the country.”
— Howard Zinn

“In the sequel to his bestseller, Lies My Teacher Told Me, James Loewen has crafted a critique of how history is being taught in public education that should be in the hands of every practicing and pre-service social studies teacher in the United States.”
—The History Teacher

"Loewen challenges us to critically reflect on the essence of what social studies and history education is and what social studies and history educators do. Doing so can only improve the experiences our students have."
—The Social Studies

"The author's recommendations on how to teach touchy topics to diverse classes are exceptional. His counsel on defining nationalism and ethnocentrism for young people is expert too. All along, the reader is not only reintroduced to critical knowledge that may have been forgotten as a result of time spent within an unproductive educational system, but is also sure to find new and transformative information. Even the trained professional must be reminded of what once was. This book does that and more."
—The Journal of Negro Education

Contents+

Table of Contents

Series Foreword by James A. Banks

Acknowledgments
   What's Wrong with the Picture on the Cover?

Introduction: History as Weapon
   A Lesson from Mississippi
   A Lesson from Vermont
   Why History Is Important to Students
   Why History Is Important to Society

Chapter 1. The Tyranny of Coverage
   Forests, Trees, and Twigs
   Winnowing Trees
   Deep Thinking
   Relevance to the Present
   Skills
   Getting the Principal on Board
   Coping with Reasons to Teach "As Usual"
   You Are Not Alone
   Bringing Students Along

Chapter 2. Expecting Excellence
   Student Characteristics Affect Teacher Expectations
   "Standardized" Tests Affect Teacher Expectations
   Statistical Processes Cause Cultural Bias in "Standardized" Tests
   Internalizing Expectations
   Teachers Can Create Their Own Expectations

Chapter 3. Historiography
   A Tale of Two Eras
   The Civil Rights Movement, Cognitive Dissonance, and Historiography
   Studying Bad History
   Other Ways to Teach Historiography

Chapter 4. Doing History
   
Doing History to Critique History
   Writing a Paper
   Bringing Families In
   Local History
   Getting Started
   Final Product
   Using the Product

Chapter 5. Truth
   Background of the Problem
   Separating Matters of Fact from Matters of Opinion
   Five Tests to Assess Credibility

Chapter 6. How and When Did People Get Here?
   A Crash Course on Archeological Issues
   Presentism
   Today's Religions and Yesterday's History
   Conclusions About Presentism
   Chronological Ethnocentrism
   Primitive to Civilized
   Costs of Chronological Ethnocentrism

Chapter 7. Why Did Europe Win?
   The Important Questions
   Looking Around the World
   Explaining Civilization
   Making the Earth Round
   Why Did Columbus Win?
   
The Columbian Exchange
   Ideological Results of Europe's Victory
   Cultural Diffusion and Syncretism Continue

Chapter 8. The $24 Myth
   Deconstructing the $24 Myth
   A More Accurate Story
   Functions of the Fable
   Overt Racism?
   Additional Considerations

Chapter 9. Slavery
   Relevance to the Present
   Hold a Meta-Conversation
   Slavery and Racism
   Four Key Problems of Slave Life
   Additional Problems in Teaching the History of Slavery

Chapter 10. The Confederacy
   Teachers Vote
   Teaching Against the States' Rights Myth
   Critiquing Textbooks
   Our Confederate Landscape
   Genesis of the Problem

Chapter 11. The Nadir
   Contemporary Relevance
   Onset of the Nadir
   Historical Causes of Antiracist Idealism
   Historical Causes of the Nadir of Race Relations
   Students Can Reveal the Nadir Themselves
   During the Nadir, Whites Became White
   End of the Nadir
   Implications for Today

Afterword: Still More Ways to Teach History

Index

About the Author

$36.95

Professors: Request an Exam Copy

Print copies available for US orders only. For orders outside the US, see our international distributors.

Books In This Series
Race, Curriculum, and the Politics of Educational Justice
Race, Curriculum, and the Politics of Educational Justice
Fostering School–Family Relationships in Multicultural Communities
Fostering School–Family Relationships in Multicultural Communities
Critical Theory, Methods, and Design in Educational Research
Critical Theory, Methods, and Design in Educational Research
Affirming Student Ethnic Identities
Affirming Student Ethnic Identities
Critical Ethnic Studies and the Global Pursuit of Justice
Critical Ethnic Studies and the Global Pursuit of Justice
Let's Talk About DEI
Let's Talk About DEI
Why Historically Black Colleges and Universities Matter
Why Historically Black Colleges and Universities Matter
Hidden in Blackness
Hidden in Blackness
"To Remain an Indian"
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