Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Texas Textbooks
I find it intriguing to read about the policies underway in Texas regarding textbooks. It is extra support for Loewen's point of view. I think that as a future teacher, it is important for me to realize that this will be a continuous struggle and debate. In my classroom I will teach from the required text, obviously, but I will push my students to question the author, form their own opinions, and to find many points of view. It is sad that our textbooks are continuing to paint the same one-sided pretty picture of our nations past and present.In all actuality, Textbooks are just not big enough to give us all of the information to form an opinion or relate the curriculum to our lives. Having the knowledge of what content is in our texts is powerful though. As long as I use textbooks as a resource, not a script, it will be of great use in the classroom. I plan to practice what I preach. I want my students to investigate the truth for themselves, this is why I will plan lessons using many resources. I am determined to keep whatever happens to our textbooks in the future from degrading the education my students will receive.
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If Texas is a whole other country, as their marketing claims, why do they get to choose the textbooks for the rest of us, hmmm? I am with you in that textbooks cannot and should not be the only resource in class. I also thing a textbook is still helpful though, and considering planning a year without one would be daunting. I guess even a bad example of something still has value as an example, so if you see something in a textbook that is just crazy then pointing that out to your students will teach them more that any specific point that textbooks are not infallible.
ReplyDeleteI really like your ideas toward making the required textbooks more useful for your students. Having them questioning the author and forming their own opinions is very valuable and useful for them. I think as teachers it is our job to use the textbooks we have, but put in our own creative ways to make it better and more useful. I think students should learn many points of view when it comes to social studies and be able to create their own opinions about subjects.
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