I remember getting textbooks in grade 7. Prior to junior high, elementary was a time that wasn’t burdened by the required reading of texts that had the ability to put one to sleep. Elementary was a time when my backpack only held my lunch, and a football, and was a lightweight to carry. Elementary however was and more importantly, where our major source of information came from the orations of our teachers. But with the inclusion of textual based learning comes the need to start verifying and looking out for more information to augment our education. The information found in textbooks have been analyzed by students, teachers, educational institutions, and governments for as long as they have been established as one of the cornerstones of proper education, and as a result there are many conflicting view points on what should actually go in a textbook. The differences in ideologies between the content of textbooks between different groups is actually quite distinct.
What’s even more interesting is that a textbook can be used to understand how people in different nations think, and to see the world from their perspective. In fact America’s State Department employs people to do just that, read textbooks from other countries. For that matter in 2007, Hillary Clinton called out Palestinian authorities for the type of math problem presented in their textbooks;
“If there are 13 Jews and nine Jews are killed, how many Jews are left?”
Aside from the blatantly obvious anti-Semitism, these textbooks seem to have no qualms about casually talking about death even to the point of glorifying violence. Similarly English textbooks seem to forget about their very violent and injurious impacts of their imperial rule, Chinese textbooks focus mainly on building tremendous patriotic feeling, the Japanese gloss over their many war crimes, and many North American textbooks place less significance on the atrocities committed by early government towards the first nations.
Textbooks really do impact our learning, and it really plays a vital role in the spreading of messages to youth.
But posting, a serious blog isn’t really my style, so here’s a link to a couple of classic textbook FAILS, where a lack of professionalism is clearly evident.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/09/21-hilarious-textbook-fails-photos_n_1408451.html#s848311&title=Is_This_A
My personal favorite is:
“….related to survival, including the so-called “four F’s: fighting, fleeing, feeding, and mating.””
MATING? Is that a subtle euphemism for something else…..?
