James W. Loewen wrote the book "Lies My Teacher Told Me" to help students understand the United States' past and how it affects the present . time. “Lies My Teacher Told Me” examines 12 different American history textbooks and highlights the various lies, flaws, and sugar-coated stories the textbooks present. Lowen explains how textbooks practice heroification and how race and race relations are a major issue in American history. Among these topics, Lowen also highlights the truth about social class in America and how textbooks lie about the past and try to avoid the recent past. Among the many flaws in American history textbooks, there is one that stands out above the rest. it’s heroification. Heroification is, according to Loewen, “a generative process that transforms people into heroes.” (p. 19) Through heroification, national heroes such as Christopher Columbus are always portrayed as perfect individuals, with only the best intentions and absolutely no flaws. Heroification to inspire and establish a sense of national pride among students. Although it may instill a sense of national pride among students, it does not present the truth. By doing this, students will never truly understand why our “heroes” did what they did, and will never know the truth. “High school students hate history. » (p. 12) Although ultimately it is. It is in this class that they do best. Studies have shown that the more history classes students take, the less they learn, they become “dumber” about history. (p. 12) “African American, Native American, and Latino Students.” ..... middle of paper ......s of the Americas, what was their life like and how did it change with the arrival of Columbus," one of my students wrote in 1991. " However, at the time, everything was presented as if it was a complete picture,” she continued, “so I never thought that was the case. » Most students after high school fail to analyze controversial issues in our society. What citizens know about our past is what they learned in high school history classes. “Today's textbooks closely follow the American Legion line and ignore the recommendations of Engle and Ochoa. For what? Is the secondary literature of history to blame? Textbook authors can hardly be expected to go back to primary sources and uncover truly obscure facts. A few decades ago, the secondary literature on history was rather biased. Until World War II, history and social sciences were openly anti-Semitic and anti-black..”