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Friday, February 27, 2004
Joanne Jacobs talks about how dull and useless history textbooks are.
As long as publishers are trying to please all the state textbook committees, books will keep getting longer, heavier and more crammed with "mentions."
Diane Ravitch asks:
Is it any wonder that most students rank history or social studies among their least favorite subjects in school? What a crashing bore it must be to try to learn something from tomes like these.
Agreed. This is why I have devised a plan for teaching my son history. I want to heavily use field trips to illustrate historical facts, so that he can associate the two. Why should we read about Lexington and Concord when we can go visit it ourselves? I want to take seemingly inconsequential road trips, just so we can stop alongside road markers (you see them all the time, don't you?) and read about the surroundings. The homesteads of Nathan Hale, Silas Deane, Mark Twain, Eli Whitney, and Oliver Ellsworth come to mind, just in my homestate.
I want to gather relevant material from different eras, books mainly, but also artifacts, which I can use to teach him how people in the past thought, and lived. If I am to choose one book about American history, it will be Paul M. Johnson's "The History of the American People".
Above all, I want my son to understand cause and effect, not irrelevant facts. For example, many kids know that the Civil War was in the 1860s. Many assume slavery was the only reason behind the conflict. Few understand how important states rights were in the debate. Not many have ever read the words of Lincoln, or Douglass. And seldom do we hear about a high school teacher who manages to make history relevant to the students. A dry, stuffy textbook will not do any of this. A passion for the subject, an understanding of circumstances and historical context, and commitment to educating will.Labels: Archives_2004
.: posted by
Dave
2:48 PM
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