“One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them” (Huxley 160). Have you ever thought that you should question what was in your primary and secondary school history textbooks? Textbooks that are written by experts are voted on by the state school board. If the content of the textbooks does not meet the board’s standards, the textbook is not adopted, even if what the expert wrote is fact based. In recent years, state school boards have started to scrub history textbooks to censor out unpopular facts of history on the premise that they are making history that is presented in classrooms more patriotic. The censoring during this practice does not allow children to learn the truth behind the events and draw their own conclusions,
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It first began after the Civil War. The South did not approve of the information that the Northern publishers were putting into the textbooks. The South demanded the textbooks be written to support their point of view, and they established the textbook adoption process. They cleansed the textbooks of Northern views (Thomas B. Fordham Foundation i, 6). In a report from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute titled “The Mad, Mad World of Textbook Adoption” explains that, “The textbook adoption process was, in effect, born to twist American history and frustrate the development of a common civic purpose” (Thomas B. Fordham Foundation 6). Through the year’s censorship pressures on publishers, it has moved from a regional controversy to a personal …show more content…
There needs to be a national nonpolitical academic board comprised entirely of experts in their fields to approve textbook content (Williams and Maloyed 38). Experts need to collaborate and review contents of textbooks. At the very least, opposite points of view should be presented to students. That way they can see that some events and people are not as straightforward as they seem, and there are conflicts involved (Gottlieb 458). It has also been suggested that the process should be put into the judge’s hands. The fear that judges at the state level may impose their own beliefs and ideals into the textbooks is real, but unlikely. It is thought that they would be more inclined to defer judgment of textbook content to the experts in the field (Gottlieb
It first began after the Civil War. The South did not approve of the information that the Northern publishers were putting into the textbooks. The South demanded the textbooks be written to support their point of view, and they established the textbook adoption process. They cleansed the textbooks of Northern views (Thomas B. Fordham Foundation i, 6). In a report from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute titled “The Mad, Mad World of Textbook Adoption” explains that, “The textbook adoption process was, in effect, born to twist American history and frustrate the development of a common civic purpose” (Thomas B. Fordham Foundation 6). Through the year’s censorship pressures on publishers, it has moved from a regional controversy to a personal …show more content…
There needs to be a national nonpolitical academic board comprised entirely of experts in their fields to approve textbook content (Williams and Maloyed 38). Experts need to collaborate and review contents of textbooks. At the very least, opposite points of view should be presented to students. That way they can see that some events and people are not as straightforward as they seem, and there are conflicts involved (Gottlieb 458). It has also been suggested that the process should be put into the judge’s hands. The fear that judges at the state level may impose their own beliefs and ideals into the textbooks is real, but unlikely. It is thought that they would be more inclined to defer judgment of textbook content to the experts in the field (Gottlieb