I read Lies My Teacher Told Me many moons ago, and it was great because it was so eye-opening, an easy read, and the guy the just seemed like a real one.
He was in the early battles against the white supremacist texas education officials.
What was entertaining / illuminating was asking my more-aware American friends questions based on the book, and seeing what they were, or were not, aware of. Helen Keller's an interesting example to use, because she's taught virtually universally in primary school as a hero of the disability-rights movement: she overcame deafness and blindess to become an author and speaker, schools and childrens' books teach ...
... but not what she spoke and wrote about. Which tends not to fit into the public-school curriculum as well. (Though perhaps its one of those submarine lessons, a seed planted to emerge later.)
I've had a lot of fun asking questions about that, watching peoople look up the story, and minds open. (Usually.)
Loewen was an absolute hero. His passing is sad, his gifts are greatly appreciated.
To the student body of Germany:
History has taught you nothing if you think you can kill ideas. Tyrants have tried to do that often before, and the ideas have risen up in their might and destroyed them.
You can burn my books and the books of the best minds in Europe, but the ideas in them have seeped through a million channels and will continue to quicken other minds. I gave all the royalties of my books for all time to the German soldiers blinded in the World War with no thought in my heart but love and compassion for the German people.
I acknowledge the grievous complications that have led to your intolerance; all the more do I deplore the injustice and unwisdom of passing on to unborn generations the stigma of your deeds.
Do not imagine that your barbarities to the Jews are unknown here. God sleepeth not, and He will visit His judgment upon you. Better were it for you to have a mill-stone hung around your neck and sink into the sea than to be hated and despised of all men.
https://www.openculture.com/2017/05/helen-keller-writes-a-le...
As a broader concept, this is also an excellent lesson in recognising a missing message. If something is talked about and praised, but always left confusingly vague ... either the speaker is hiding something, or they're aware that they cannot directly mention the subject or events. Either way, it's an invitation to do some digging.
Sometimes you find a Helen Keller. Sometimes you find a Samuel F. B. Morse.
Foreign conspiracy against the liberties of the United States
They want to teach nice parts of her and dont want to teach off-putting ideas of her. That is the whole point of that chapter in his book.
Her life seems a clear case of outstanding achievement that was only possible with outstanding support.
I find this interesting as I received my education from a texas public school system. It was not a horrible school as it offered AP courses and even started a CompSci class type class my senior year. I focused my energy in math/sciences, and coasted in history/literature. However, as an adult, I'm realizing that the history that was taught definitely left a lot of details out. One thing that I realized was how European focused the history of WWII was, and the Pacific conflict was all focused on the "big ones". A little on Midway, but clearly it was focused on US involvement. There was nothing on what Japan was doing in China, and very little on what Stalin was doing in Russia.
It wasn't until I got to my first few history courses in college that I realized how much of the Civil War was not taught. Go figure from a Texas view point I guess. I had the same professor for the 2 classes I took because I liked how he taught the first class, but then heard from other older students that he was pretty famous for knowing there were blank spots in the average public school curriculums.