HOW TO LEARN WHO CHOOSES THE HISTORY BOOKS TODAY NEWS! (2624 hits)
For Immediate Release!
Who chooses the history textbooks?
What many students (and even some educators themselves) don’t know is that textbook choice is a highly politicized process in different states.
rs believed in freedom and liberty.”
“Rosa Parks was a tired old woman.”
“Abraham Lincoln was the Great Emancipator.”
My undergraduates were discussing a YouTube video that they’d been assigned to watch for class. In it, the author spoke about the dangers of whitewashing history rs believed in freedom and liberty.”
“Rosa Parks was a tired old woman.”
“Abraham Lincoln was the Great Emancipator.”
My undergraduates were discussing a YouTube video that they’d been assigned to watch for class. In it, the author spoke about the dangers of whitewashing history rs believed in freedom and liberty.”
“Rosa Parks was a tired old woman.”
“Abraham Lincoln was the Great Emancipator.”
My undergraduates were discussing a YouTube video that they’d been assigned to watch for class. In it, the author spoke about the dangers of whitewashing history https://www.today.com/tmrw/who-chooses-his... and this was particularly relevant for the course that I was instructing: “Teaching Race." The stated goal of my course was to "relearn an American history that centers the voices of Black, Latinx and Indigenous populations; voices that have been historically erased." The students and I were discussing some of the historical "facts" that they’d learned during their K-12 schooling that had been formative in their understanding of American democracy. Where does that history come from? Who chooses which stories get told and which stories are erased? https://www.today.com/tmrw/how-minstrel-sh... and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb04xj7LS3...
Many public schools in this country teach history and social studies curriculum straight from the textbook. What many students (and even some educators themselves) don’t know is that textbook choice is a highly politicized process in different states with arguments over everything from the tone of the texts to what content is included or excluded. There is no single story of American history; as James Baldwin wrote, “American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.” But it has become increasingly evident in our current racial reckoning that the erasure of particular stories in American history has dangerous and wide-sweeping consequences.
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In January 2020, The New York Times published a robust analysis of the differences in history and social studies textbooks from two politically distinct states — Texas and California. Discrepancies in textbook content can be attributed to different state standards, curriculums, laws of the state and textbook review panels who assess the curriculums and submit recommended changes to the publishers. In this analysis, national education correspondent Dana Goldstein pointedly refers to the differences of the panelists, both in terms of ideologies and expertise. The California review panel was comprised of state board of education-selected educators, all appointed by the former Gov. Jerry Brown.
The Texas panel was also appointed by the state board of education, but the panel was made up of “educators, parents, business representatives and a Christian pastor and politician." This assembly may sound surprising, but as the varying levels of educational expertise represented in the Texas panel shows, there is often undue political influence over what content is included in textbooks and what information is valued in the K-12 curriculum.
