Read the following section from “Lies My Teacher Told Me; Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong,” by James W. Loewen (2018):
High School Students hate history. When they list their favorite subjects, history invariably comes in last. Students consider history “the most irrelevant” of twenty-one subjects commonly taught in high school. Bor-r-ring is the adjective they apply to it. When students can, they avoid it, even though most students get higher grades in history than in math, science, or English. Even when they are forced to take classes in history, they repress what they learn, so every year or two another study decries what our seventeen-year-olds don’t know……
College teachers in most disciplines are happy when their students have had significant exposure to the subject before college. Not teachers in history. History professors in college routinely put down high school history courses. A [college teacher] calls his survey of American history “Iconoclasm I and II,” because he sees his job as disabusing his charges of what they learned in high school to make room for more accurate information. In no other field does this happen Mathematics professors, for instance, know that non-Euclidean geometry is rarely taught in high school, but they they don’t assume that Euclidean geometry was mistaught. Professors of English literature don’t presume that Romeo and Juliet was misunderstood in high school
Write a short essay on whether or not you agree with the opening sentence, “High School Students hate history.” Explain why or why not? This is your opinion, so don’t worry about supplying the supporting facts to support your opinion.
Your essay should be a minimum of one page, single spaced on college ruled paper. Refer to Loewen’s article where appropriate.
Use standard English, with sentences and paragraphs, when writing your essay.
(May 10, 13 / 30 Minutes / 10 points)