While reading "Caught Between Invisibility and Stereotyping: Teaching the Novel Shabanu," I was struck by the following quote. "Said argued that Western authors, artists, scholars and educators have consistently offered their readers highly simplistic representations of the societies we have colonized" (180). My immediate reaction was, we offer simplistic representations because we don't want to feel bad or guilty about what we've done to those complex societies. It appears as though there is a conscience effort made to make the colonization of advanced societies less aversive.
Can we not also include those who manufacture classroom textbooks in simplistic representation of colonized societies? In class last week, we very briefly discussed the textbook industry and the conformity to certain textbooks that is created when California or Texas decide to use a particular one. Will there ever be a time when textbooks accurately represent societies that we have colonized or history in general? And, if this proves to be an impossibility, what can we do as teachers to go against the grain?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I don't think there will ever be a time where history is accurately represented. The authors who right the textbook will give their point of view of what happened whether it is accurate or not. Unforuntately the people who write history books are usually white middle class males. They will glorify what white males did back then instead of telling what really happened. This is why I like Zinn because he wants to tell the story from someone other than a white male. Personally, if I am going to learn about history then I want to know the truth whether it is good or bad. I don't want to get all this false information when I am growing up and then find out the truth when I am older.
I believe that it will be extremely hard for teachers to go against the curriculum especially in the intermediate grades. I wish there was a way that teachers could tell the students the truth about history but I think that it will be hard since students get a new teacher each year. Say if I told my fifth graders the truth about Columbus, then they go to sixth grade and their teacher teaches them what is in the etextbook about Columbus. It might cause confusion with the students and their new teacher might tell them that what I told them was untrue. Teachers can go against the grain by having the students read controversial articles that includes both the truth and what the historians what us to hear. This will give the students a glimpse of both sides without directly telling them the accurate story.
Post a Comment