Lies My Teacher Told Me Ch 12

Loewen ch 12

Textbooks are supposed to be informative. They are the primary source of information for students. Yet, they neglect to teach us the true facts. Education systems have a way of unknowingly implanting images into adolescent minds. By this I mean that what is taught in school becomes part of our common sense, even if it is not logical.

Although it is off topic, when a Japanese student is told to describe ‘sakura,’ they would say that it is Japan’s national flower. Who decided that the cherry blossom was a symbolization of Japan? Where did this image start? How did so many students end up believing this? The answer is the schools in Japan. Starting with the songs and poems we learn in Elementary School, Japanese students are brainwashed into thinking that cherry blossoms represent Japan.

Textbooks have the same effect on students. They make students believe something, without them actually realizing it. What is taught in school is implanted into a student’s mind, unknowingly forming their opinions and perception. If schools continue to teach using textbooks written by patriotic writers, the students are bound to become proud of their nation and its past. 

Ernest Hemingway 3Bs

Born in Illinois, Ernest Hemingway was raised by a father who was a doctor, and a mother who was a music teacher. His writing career first started when he started out as a reporter for the Kansas City Star. At the age of eighteen, he volunteered as a Red Cross ambulance driver, when he was injured by a shrapnel, ultimately invaliding him home from the front lines of the fight in Italy. 

A while after his return, Hemingway move to  Paris where he served as a correspondent for the Toronto Daily Star, where he became part of a group of American and English writers including Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, and Ford Madox Ford. Hemingway was considered as the voice of the "lost generation," who felt disaffection in the post world war ages in the United States. His most famous book was on his experience in the front lines at Italy, called A Farewell to Arms, published in 1929. He has also written The Sun Also Rises, published in 1926.

Lies My Teacher Told Me Ch 11

Loewen ch 11

Until reaching this chapter of the book, I never thought about how textbooks are concluded. Come to think of it, my teachers always said there was simply no time to cover everything, therefore, I’ve never actually opened the ending of a textbook.

When I think about it, I studied history all throughout Junior High and High School, and I do not recall learning about the recent past, such as the Vietnam War and the fall of the Soviet Union. Maybe I was a bad student and just don’t remember the classes, but I feel that the teachers might be following the textbook chronologically in order to avoid teaching the awkward facts. My guess is that the teachers do not want to teach us student’s lie, therefore they are reluctant to go through the ending chapters of the textbooks.

Strictly speaking, there is a certain timeline that the teachers need to follow so that the students can understand the flow of the events. By teaching history randomly, the details would be disconnected, further making the students dislike the subject. There is a need to follow the chronological order of the facts, however if the teachers are aware of the fact that they will not finish the textbook, I do not understand why they cannot plan the course so that the students actually reach the end of the text.

The textbooks featured in this book, all seem to conclude on a high note. The vague and optimistic conclusions are of no help for the students who are going to lead the next generation. The lack of a realistic afterword can be perceived as one of the reasons as to why students find history irrelevant. The authors do not need to be cynical and critical about every detail, but they should not do away with phrases like “all we need to do is keep our chin up” 

Lies My Teacher Told Me Ch 9

Loewen ch 9

The reason as to why American history textbooks do not mention the Vietnam War in detail is possibly because it is still considered to be a ‘recent’ event. History is in the past, meaning the people who were involved in that particular event is probably dead, therefore there is no need to worry about ruining their reputation, or causing them to live a lie by telling a fake legacy about them.

Never having used an American History textbook, I cannot say for sure, however there is a chance that they do not mention 9.11 in detail. There are many ‘myths’ about 9.11, such as the US government are behind the terrorist attack. Whether it is true or not is impossible to tell, seeing as though the textbooks probably do not mention any gory information.

As embarrassing as it is, I do not know much about the Vietnam War, except for the few famous photos. Although it may seem like a recent event compared to the Second World War, the quantity of people who witnessed the war will gradually fall, leaving the next generation ignorant of the information. As graphic as it may be, there is a necessity to show the students how terrifying a war truly is.

The textbook authors conceal the truth behind the Vietnam War; in other words, the writers are ‘lying’ to the students. Unfortunately, the lack of critical thinking in history classes deprive students from criticizing the facts, brainwashing them into learning lies.

History in any country is simple revision of fact after fact. The information is forced on to the students, which could easily make them dislike the subject and find it irrelevant. There is a need to make students realize how important it is to use the knowledge of the past in order to develop a better future. By changing the approach of the subject, there may be more students who find the class relevant, making them actually ‘attend’ the classes. 

LLA Lecture 6/12

Having watched The Corporation, I had been losing faith in human beings in general. My recent image of the world was that humans worked only for their profit, thinking of money alone, not caring of the effects on other people both physically and mentally. So todays lecture was a breath of fresh air.

The documentaries we have been watching in the past several weeks, only made me think that humans had lost morality altogether. The Corporation convinced me that CEOs care about profit, not the moral aspects needed when developing a factory.  I have felt that the future is dark, that there is no hope of a clean and moral world. Therefore, the contradictory content of todays lecture was thought provoking.

During the discussions in class, I usually ran away with the phrase "morally speaking, it's wrong, but the CEOs aren't going to change their standards." I still think it is true that the corporations would put their profits on the line to be 'just.' However, when perceiving the human species as moving toward a more diverse future, acknowledging a 'bigger circle' of people, I was provoked to think more in-depth of the problems in the world today.

As a child, I always believed that little people could change the world, that nobodies had a chance to create a movement, simply put, I was an idealist. Yet as I grew older, I became more cynical, thinking that      even CEOs or government officials would not be able to change the immoral system. I thought I was thinking realistically, and that I should live my life, and help those close to me alone. But the lecture made me feel that there are people in the world who are trying to change the unjust society, and that it tis not fair  that they are doing all the work, and I am simply witnessing it. The discussion questions in class involved a broad range of topics, so it was difficult to have a clear answer,  so I am not sure of the actions we can take in order to change the system. I guess we all need to go think back on the stages when we were naive, but pure so as to think clearly for a moral future.

True Democracy

After listening to LLA lectures and watching The Corporation, I have come to realize that the developed countries are not democratic at all. In fact, they are simply less extreme, disillusioning the public that they are fortunate to live in a "free" society. However, we are controlled by the corporations, and manipulated by them throughout our lives.

The corporations are obviously unjust, for they do not seem to take responsibility or any sort of action for the toxic chemicals released into the world, but they are also immoral, as they work to manipulate the citizens. The corporations are the main supporters of government senates, meaning the corporations are bound to have an advantage against an average citizen. Furthermore, they sponsor the mainstream media, meaning that even if the public had something critical to say either about the government or the corporations, it would not air, leaving the public clueless of the truth.

The control the corporations have over the decisions the government makes, and what the mainstream media makes public, ultimately deprives a citizens rights to acknowledge what is truly happening. Nothing about the world today seems democratic at all. We are obviously lucky to be living in a time and area that allows free speech, and equal human rights, however it cannot be denied that it the developed countries are not a true democratic society.

It is true that maintaining a structure in which the public all have an equal saying, would be difficult seeing as though there are too many people in one society. A possibility would be to start small, for example, a town council could be more public and open, allowing the people living there to vote for every new system. The current system in which the representatives govern every detail aside from the election itself, deprives the rest of the "average" people's freedom and the decisions they should be making for themselves.

A society in which the public all got a chance to decide what happens in a society, without the manipulation of elites and rich corporations is an ideal image, which seems unrealistic for now. Despite what the CEOs of the corporations or what the senates say, not much has changed. As sad as it is, everyone works for their benefits and profits alone. In a greedy and selfish society like today, nobody is free.

Joel Bakan 3Bs

Joel Bakan, the author of The Corporation, is a professor of law at the British Columbia University, specializing in economic, social, and the political dimensions of law. He studied at Simon Fraiser University, the University of Oxford, and Dalhousie University, later on getting a masters degree at Harvard Law School after serving as a clerk in 1985. After graduating, he taught at Osgoode Hall Law School of York University, then moving on to teach at his current university in 1990.

His first wife, Marlee Gayle Kline was also a professor of Law at the University of British Columbia. She died of Leukemia in 2001, after a long struggle, which Bakan stuck by throughout. After her death, he established the Marlee Klein Memorial Lectures in Social Justice to honor her contribution to Canadian Law.

Since the publication of The Corporation in 2004, he has published two other books, one on children, and how the corporations target their venerability, as a means of profit, and has also written a book on social justice and its historical effects.

One perception of his critique on the corporations, can be judged from his education in law, where he studied the rights and wrong of the society. Another source of his thoughts can be because of his first wife and her illness. Although it may not directly be connected, it can be perceived that it provoked him to consider the struggle citizens are faced with due to the corporation's greed for profit.