Teaching What Really Happened: How to Avoid the Tyranny of Textbooks and Get Students Excited About Doing History

James W. Loewen

Jan 2018 · Teachers College Press

About this ebook

James Loewen has revised Teaching What Really Happened, the bestselling, go-to resource for social studies and history teachers wishing to break away from standard textbook retellings of the past. In addition to updating the scholarship and anecdotes throughout, the second edition features a timely new chapter entitled “Truth” that addresses how traditional and social media can distort current events and the historical record. Helping students understand what really happened in the past will empower them to use history as a tool to argue for better policies in the present. Our society needs engaged citizens now more than ever, and this book offers teachers concrete ideas for getting students excited about history while also teaching them to read critically. It will specifically help teachers and students tackle important content areas, including Eurocentrism, the American Indian experience, and slavery.

“Should be in the hands of every history teacher in the country.”
—Howard Zinn

“This book should be required reading for every history teacher in the land.”
—Sam Wineburg, Stanford University

“In the sequel to his bestseller, Lies My Teacher Told Me, James Loewen has crafted a critique of how history is being taught in public education that should be in the hands of every practicing and pre-service social studies teacher in the United States.”
—The History Teacher (from the first edition)

“Loewen challenges us to critically reflect on the essence of what social studies and history education is and what social studies and history educators do. Doing so can only improve the experiences our students have.”
—The Social Studies (from the first edition)