[RubberSoul]

My high school history teacher recommended his book to me when I was junior. I loved it, and even wrote to the author regarding a mistake I thought I found in the book (pretty arrogant of me). Loewen replied generously. I don't remember the exact exchange, but he was so encouraging. It meant a lot to me in high school that he replied.

[touisteur]

Kudos to your teacher, for recommending you the book (personally because of your unmanageable curiosity :-) or generally to the class ?). I wish my teachers had tried drowning teenage me with good, challenging books.

Kudos getting the courage to write to an author you admired. Putting your words on paper, letting someone that wrote know that they reached you. That your motives might not gave been noble (arrogant is a good phase to live as a teenager, we need to learn that we are a crafty, amazing bunch, we humans, to celebrate it, and we need to be taught hubris concretely, its positive and negative sides, etc.).

Kudos for him to write you back, with encouraging words. He probably got a good chuckle or two, and took the time, in a way, to show you you'd touched him.

Wholesome human story, thanks for sharing.

[gumby]

My kid, in his first year in a US school, apparently asked the history teacher in class, "Wait, didn't XXX happen in the fashion YYY?"* and was told it wasn't taught that way. I asked her about this in the parent meeting and she said indeed, what he had learned was correct but she needed to teach things in the approved way so that the students would pass the standardized tests.

This isn't meant to imply the US is in some way particularly evil about this -- all countries have some sort of origin myths. This is more a comment on the effect of state level standardized testing.

* actual issue wasn't race-related so I elided it.