Handicapped in History

     I consider myself handicapped in history. I have never had an interest in history, mostly because my history education has been shallow. Leaving the states when I was in 7th grade and having an incomplete American history education, and then coming back to Japan without ever taking a Japanese history lesson, I found myself lost in history. I could not figure out how I could memorize all of the "facts" in "history", because "history" taught in America and Japan were completely different. Therefore,  I became uninterested in "history".

     However, I realize that this is only an excuse for not having the discipline to memorize "facts". I never had the motivation to force myself to become interested in history. How could I become interested in a story where pieces of the puzzle were missing? History textbooks seemed like a terribly constructed novel, where motives and connections of the characters and events were constantly missing.  Memorizing these pieces of information was like trying to memorize the fragmented pictures printed on the pieces of a puzzle, instead of the whole picture of the completed puzzle. There was no way I could manage to memorize these facts unless I crammed the information into myself.

     James W. Loewen, the author of "Lies My Teacher Told Me" gave me a different perspective on how to view history. He states that textbooks are often too clean, and understates the bad side of the country's history. I don't have enough knowledge to say that this is true, but looking at his education in history, I can tell that what James Loewen is stating is somewhat true. Reading the first chapter of the book, I instantly got hooked. However, since I am "Handicapped in History", I cannot tell if the statements made in the book are true. As Rab said, I felt that there is a need to think critically, and do some research on my own.