revise, revise, revise. for book club this month we're reading "lies my teacher told me." in a tone similar to popular psuedo-academic books like "guns, germs, and steel," james loewen presents the case for the craptastic american history (and any history) education that we've received. he gives us thrilling new facts and perspectives on historical figures and events from columbus to the civil war. i think everyone should read this book. if you can't get through all of it, at least read some of it, it should be required reading for seniors in high school. while i'm still undecided on whether or not my history education was lacking or unexciting, i do think much of what loewen says is spot on and pertinent to the situation in our classrooms.

"our situation is this: american history is full of fantastic and important stories. these stories have the power to spellbind audiences, even audiences of difficult seventh graders. these same stories show what america has been about and have direct relevance to our present society. american audiences, even young ones, need and want to know about their national past. yet they sleep through the classes that present it.

what has gone wrong?"
-introduction, lies my teacher told me-

what's funny about reading these books however -- stuff like freakonomics; blank slate; the aforementioned guns, germs, and steel -- is that as interesting as they are to read, they really have no real world value to the average person. sure, i now have an inkling of the five major reasons why europe came to domination, but how useful is this information? do people feel smarter, more well read, more aware after reading these books? what do these books do to people short of being a nice semi-intelligent diversion? then again, it's better to read them than not read them right? at least you try to know something to talk about at dinner, instead of sitting there babbling about nothing. then again, you'd really be just sitting around regurgitating ideas you just read about while eating; so really, the best solution is to just read and eat, while avoiding conversation altogether.