Very few college professors want high school graduates in their history class who are simply "gung ho" and "rah-rah" with regard to everything the United States has ever done, have never thought critically in their life, don't know the meaning of the word "historiography" and have never heard of it. They think that history is something you're supposed to memorize and that's about it. That's not what high school, or what college history teachers want.
James W. LoewenI don't think teachers read the textbooks. And I don't think adoption committees read the textbooks before they adopt them. I think they look at them.
James W. LoewenStudents will start finding history interesting when their teachers and textbooks stop lying to them.
James W. LoewenWe still have to realize that if you are say a historian of the Civil War, you donโt know anything special about say Columbus or for that matter the 20th century. You are a consumer of that information, especially if itโs stuff like Columbus and the American Indians. That information isnโt even in history, much of it. Much of it is in anthropology or archeology.
James W. LoewenNobody would ever want to read a textbook about the Civil War and then interrupt that for two pages about water rights in the west.
James W. LoewenVery few college professors want high school graduates in their history class who are simply "gung ho" and "rah-rah" with regard to everything the United States has ever done, have never thought critically in their life, don't know the meaning of the word "historiography" and have never heard of it. They think that history is something you're supposed to memorize and that's about it. That's not what high school, or what college history teachers want.
James W. Loewen