Can you imagine what the science textbook subsidized by ExxonMobil says about global warming? I just returned from a 4-day meeting of history teachers - this was their Number One concern. Their texts are watered-down, whitewashed corporate crap (two paragraphs on Vietnam, for example). They'd prefer not to use the textbooks, but the standards more or less require them to teach to the test (which is based on the book). And No Child Left Behind, which focuses on memorizing names and dates instead of teaching critical thinking, encourages more of the same. If you haven't been in a classroom lately and seen all the corporate presence (from textbooks to posters to TV programs to Pizza Hut cafeterias) check it out.
ah, it is a sad problem. I actually like the textbook I use pretty well, though of course I'd prefer not to use one at all. And I don't have the whole "teach to the test" problem because I teach college. That is depressing though. There is a good mag w/innovative ideas for history teachers from the OAH. Maybe I'll do a full on post about it.
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Mother Mags comments in a DKos diary, History Textbooks Receive a Failing Grade
Can you imagine what the science textbook subsidized by ExxonMobil says about global warming? I just returned from a 4-day meeting of history teachers - this was their Number One concern. Their texts are watered-down, whitewashed corporate crap (two paragraphs on Vietnam, for example). They'd prefer not to use the textbooks, but the standards more or less require them to teach to the test (which is based on the book). And No Child Left Behind, which focuses on memorizing names and dates instead of teaching critical thinking, encourages more of the same. If you haven't been in a classroom lately and seen all the corporate presence (from textbooks to posters to TV programs to Pizza Hut cafeterias) check it out.
ah, it is a sad problem. I actually like the textbook I use pretty well, though of course I'd prefer not to use one at all. And I don't have the whole "teach to the test" problem because I teach college. That is depressing though.
There is a good mag w/innovative ideas for history teachers from the OAH. Maybe I'll do a full on post about it.
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