I feel like people would pay more attention to what is taught in schools if they read this sentence. Not only because they would learn that Hitler got his idea for concentration camps from the United States but because of the statement, "Ironically, Adolf Hitler displayed more knowledge of how we treated Native Americans than American high schoolers today who rely on their textbooks." This is a scary thought, In a sense, Loewen is highlighting that a terrible man in history, who is not an American, knows more about American history than kids sitting in a classroom in the United States. I feel like this statement alone sums up just how much the education system keeps from us. It kind of makes me mad to think that horrible dictator knew more about my country than I do. I feel like more people should feel this way and make sure a change happens for future generations.

This is a great start to how we should think about the information that is exposed to students. The main problem that we see from this book is that the education system does not think students are capable of forming their own opinions about history. I feel like that is why a lot of the history we learn in high school is 'watered down," so to speak. I believe the education system can make up for its mistakes by doing its research. The problem is that we do not know if everyone who is in charge of what is required for students to learn understands what information is being left out. They simply could be going with what they know. The other problem is that, sadly, there are people in charge of the education system who know exactly what FACTS they are withholding. Hopefully, deceiving of what truly happened in our country's history will change shortly.

This statement shocked me. While we didn't go into deep detail about the Louisiana Purchase, it was emphasized that the United States bought the land from France. It is disappointing that this piece of history was withheld from my education. Loewen is correct when discussing how the Indians were portrayed in our education. All my life, I thought the stories of Native Americans not understanding land ownership were true. Because, sadly, those stories made sense. Native Americans were painted as people who just lived by the land and had no rule of law. However, Loewen gives us many examples of how the education system failed us by not debunking that statement,

Loewen likely intended this book to show us the raw, unfiltered truth of history. If we had been taught the full story from the beginning, we could use those lessons to improve our lives today. It's understandable why people often choose to ignore or downplay the negative aspects of history. They prefer to believe in heroic figures and a hopeful future rather than confront past mistakes. However, we can see how history is repeating itself because we were never taught the "dark side" of the past. This lack of knowledge prevents us from recognizing the warning signs and stopping harmful events from happening now.

The highlighted portion discusses the true nature of the early Virginians. When we are told the story of Columbus, Jamestown, and the Indians, we are told that everyone worked together. The Indians wanted to help the Virginians by teaching them how to plant crops, and in return, the Virginians educated the Natives in English culture. However, Loewen tells us that what happened was after Squanto volunteered to help them with fishing, other Virginians "took Indian prisoners and forced them to teach colonists how to farm."

These couple of paragraphs do not sit right with me. The reason is because I did not know that this happened. In my years of education, I was never told that A) the disease during this time was so bad and B) that the American Indians were used this way. Loewen demonstrated how the European Americans used the fear of the Natives to gain power over them. In the last paragraph highlighted, Loewen states, "many American Indians surrendered to alcohol, converted to Christianity, or simply killed themselves."

I believe this is the root of the problem. Our education system has warped what we know about history into what they want us to know. Instead of teaching all of the facts from the start, they are picking and choosing the parts they want us to know. In my opinion, that is scary. The problem is that this has been the way for many years. What Loewen is saying in this sentence is if these facts were kept in the history books, then students would have the means to have a more critical opinion about Columbus rather then seeing him as a hero.

Loewen has shown the differece between what we have been taught about American history and what actually happened. This can cause a need to rewrite our American history education. This story alone has caused me to question what I have been taught in school. Surely others will feel the same. Now, it is simply a matter of will the education change in order to teach us the cold hard facts or will we stay teaching a truth that is easier to swallow?

This excerpt goes with the last chapter of this book. In chapter one, Loewen discusses how America heroifies people in history without shedding light on the whole truth. By combining the birthdays of Washington and Lincoln on one day while giving Columbus his own day, it automatically places him into a higher role than the president's. He also mentions the fact that EVERY textbook includes the date 1492 and the story that goes with it. However, "most of them leave out virtually everything that is important to know about Columbus and the European explorationg of the Americas." This ties in with what Loewen talked about before with Woodrow Wilson; leaving out details to make a person look better.

This goes to show that it is about making money instead of our education.

What role do alternative facts play in shaping public discourse, and how can education counteract misinformation?

Alternative facts are designed to support what we want to believe, rather than the unbiased truth. We see examples of this every day online. Depending on what side you lean towards, you are going to see more articles and news broadcasts that support what you believe. James W. Loewen talks about this in the preface. Loewen gives an example of how alternative facts look today. He mentions how on the morning after Trump's inauguration, Sean Spicer, his press secretary, stated, "That was the largest audience to withness an inauguration, period." Obviously, this statement was made to make Trump look good; and it did. Until Kellyanne Conway, Trump's former counselor, was questioned for her phrase "alternative facts." Shortly after, it was proved with pictures that Trump's inauguration did not in fact the largest audience. This one example shows just how far people will run with the "truth".

Schools are the main culprits on unreflective thinking. Loewen mentions how "criticial thinking" is excersiced in schools. I have found myself in these instances. He talks about how When teachers ask questions, they expect an immediate answer. However, most of the "critical thinking" exercises that teachers use are supposed to be met with well thought out answers. This simply cannot be done without proper research. Loewen states, "Teach who use the question, I suspect, simply invite students to opine off the top of their heads. Critical thinking requires assembling data to back one's opinion." I could not agree more with this statement. People want to throw around the phrase, "Do your research," not releaizing that we are not taught to research before we argue or try to justify a statement.

The education system is a great place to start learning how to detect misinformation. However, in order to do this, we need to rethink how we are teaching students. Loewen pinpoints the main areas that need attention to improve student thought processes. Loewen and a group of professors and students from Tougaloo College wrote a textbook that gave students questions to ask to help them decipher whether information was true or not. One of the questions is, "How do his/her conclusions compare with those of other authors you ahve read? Is s/he biased?" By asking this question, it forces students to do their own research on what they are reading. This builds important skills for future instances, such as elections.

I believe that we all have something to learn just from this short passage. If we took the time to research, break the thinking barriers that we have been taught, and compare different sources, then misinformation and "fake news" would be less of a problem.

This is a very important statement. With how easy it is to only see what you agree with, it is hard to see a different perspective. If you are only seeing how AI is a bad thing, then that is the argument you are going to side with. If you are only seeing that everyone should get a college education, then you are going to fight for that side more. The internet makes it easy to only see one side of the debate. We have to make a conscience effort to see from both sides. That means seeking out the opposite view that we might not agree with, but we have to do this to keep our minds open to

This might not be why she put this here, but I think she made this statement because she wanted to show that she had faith Americans coming together to fix this problem. I say this because throughout this preface, she seemed to bash Americans. She wasn't being down right terrible, but she made it known that these people were wrong. By adding this closing, she almost flips the switch on the mood of the passage. I think it was good that she added this because it shows that there is hope in fixing all of the things she mentioned previously.

Showing a solution

This was news to me. Why would people want to "drop the idea of truth?" That seems ridiculous.

If we simply took the time to research, we would see that our assumptions are wrong. My biggest take away from the highlighted portion is that it's not a group of a few individuals that voted for the wrong answer; it was over half of the total of voters. This shows that uninformed opinions are not a small problem.

All for entertainment purposes

This is a very good point. I hadn't out much thought into how the newspaper companies were being affected by the way current news is broadcasted. Where I am from, everyone still had a subscription to the newspaper, primarily due to the high school sports section. The author briefly mentioned how newspapers relied on "investigative journalism." I can only assume that this would lead to a lower amount of false information being spread. I believe this is one of the biggest things we are lacking when it comes to media and news today: investigative journalism. Now, obviously reporters for newspaper companies are investigating to for an article that will grab readers attentions, but they are also investigating for credible information.

It is not easy to crtitque your own work in a way such as these authors did. However, by stating in their book that "only four of our twenty-five mini-biographies were of women," shows that it is okay to admit your faults. Nobody is perfect and it is foolish to illustrate yourself as such. Another benefit of this particular group making these statements is that it draws the student to look closer at these types of things. To ask questions, such as, "Out of these authors, how many are women? How many are of a different race?" While these questions may cause some backlash for "discrimination", they are valid questions for this instance. As long as you are not using gender or race in a hateful way, it is okay to observe these things. It is common sense that people of different genders and races might have different opinions, life styles, experiences, and so much more.

Acknowledging that the questions asked were not typically asked in schools shows that they are trying to get students to think with a different perspective. As the text stated, causualities in history are not normally talked about in this way in high school. However, by asking questions like this particular group of professors did, the students were forced to think in a different way.

This is a point that I find myself agreeing with; especially while looking back at some of my high school classes. It is overwhelming to be asked these types of questions without any time to do research and have a more educated answer. It almost feels like "critical thinking" exercises, like the ones mentioned, are designed to set you up for failure.

This is a very good point. I am not exactly sure the number of committees or people that read these books, but it still amazes me that not one person noticed that these book were identical. This goes to show that there isn't much cross referencing happening in our education. It seems like teachers and professors are handing books out for students to read simply because they are told to.