"Lies My Teacher Told Me" - Ch.1 (Heroification, questioning authority)

     This is Blog 1 for "Lies My Teacher Told Me", the book we're reading in Rab Paterson's Stream 1 ELA class.
     As soon as the book mentioned the word "Heroification" towards the beginning of the first chapter, I felt like I knew what the author, James W. Loewen, was trying to say about American History textbooks.  I lived in the States for 10 years, and have read my fair share of boring, back-breaking heavy textbooks.  So when the author brought out the word "Heroification", I could understand what he was trying to say, to some extent.  I remember four or five years ago, when I was a middle school student in the States, being taught about Helen Keller, Woodrow Wilson, and other such iconic American figures.
     What I don't remember are the stories of Helen Keller going on to become a socialist radical, or Woodrow Wilson turning out to be an extreme white supremacist.  These facts just might have been worth mentioning.  Just might.←
     Unfortunately, when I hear that American textbooks tend to glorify their historical figures, I'm not so surprised; America has always loved its heroes.  Now that this book mentions it, there might have been quite a lot of things that I read back then that could have used a little more clarification/correction.  Of course, that's not to say that America doesn't have any real heroes; the country has been mother to many many admirable people throughout history.  However, its textbooks' tendency to glorify certain people's certain actions, and on the other hand leave out certain "unnecessary" details, is a shame; it's also impossible to tell if the facts are hidden at times.
     On a final note. "Fish cannot possibly understand the water around them, because they are constantly in it, always swimming around in it.  Only by being outside of the water for the first time is it possible to understand what water is."  This is a rough translation of prof. Kobayashi of Environmental Studies talking about fish and critical thinking, and how to think outside the box, so to speak haha.  I thought it insightful.