Read Lies My Teacher Told Me for Free Online Page A

1918 U.S. invasion of Russia, for he wrote in a different venue in
     1973, “American troops shot it out with Russian armed forces on Russian soil in two
     theatres from 1918 to 1920.”' Probably several other authors knew of it, too. Wilson's
     racism is also well known to professional historians. Why don't they let the public in on these matters? Heroification
     itself supplies a first answer. Socialism is repugnant to most Americans. So are racism
     and colonialism. Michael Kammen suggests that authors selectively omit blemishes in order
     to make certain historical figures sympathetic to as many people as possible. The textbook critic Norma Gabler has testified that textbooks should “present our nation's
     patriots in a way that would honor and respect them”; in her eyes, admitting Keller's
     socialism and Wilson's racism would hardly do that,“ In the early 1920s the American
     Legion said that authors of textbooks ”are at fault in placing before immature pupils the
     blunders, foibles and frailties of prominent heroes and patriots of our Nation." The Legion would hardly be able to fault today's history textbooks on this count. Perhaps we can go further. I began with Helen Keller because omitting the last sixty-four years of her life exemplifies the sort of culture-serving distortion
     that will be discussed later in this book. We teach Keller as an ideal, not a real person,
     to inspire our young people to emulate her. Keller becomes a mythic figure, the “woman who overcame”but for what? There is no content! Jus[ look what she accomplished, we're exhortedyet we haven't a clue as to what that really was.
    Keller did not want to be frozen in childhood. She herself stressed that the meaning of
     her life lay in what she did once she overcame her disability. In 1929, when she was
     nearing fifty, she wrote a second volume of autobiography, entitled Midstream, that described her social philosophy in some detail. Keller wrote about visiting mill
     towns, mining towns, and packing towns where workers were on strike. She intended that we
     learn of these experiences and of the conclusions to which they led her. Consistent with
     our American ideology of individualism, the truncated version of Helen Keller's story
     sanitizes a hero, leaving only the virtues of self-help and hard work. Keller herself,
     while scarcely opposing hard work, explicitly rejected this ideology.
    I had once believed that we were all masters ofour fatethat we could mould our lives into
     any form we pleased. . . . I had overcome deafness and blindness sufficiently to be happy,
     and I supposed that anyone could come out victorious if he threw himself valiantly into
     life's struggle. But as I went more and more about the country I learned that I had spoken
     with assurance on a subject I knew little about. I forgot that I owed my success partly the advantages of my birth and environment. . . . Now, however, I learned that the power
     to rise in the world is not within the reach of everyone.
    Textbooks don't want to touch this idea. “There are three great taboos in textbook
     publishing,” an editor at one of the biggest houses told me, “sex, religion, and social
     class.” While I had been able to guess the first two, the third floored me. Sociologists
     know the importance of social class, after all. Reviewing American history textbooks
     convinced me that this editor was right, however. The notion that opportunity might be
     unequal in America, that not everyone has “the power to rise in the world,” is anathema to
     textbook authors, and to many teachers as well. Educators would much rather present Keller
     as a bland source of encouragement and inspiration to our youngif she can do it, you can
     do it! So they leave out her adult life and make her entire existence over into a vague
     “up by the bootstraps” operation. In the process, they make this passionate fighter for
     the poor into