Textbooks and Curricular Materials
How do they effect public schools?
Textbooks
Textbooks are used as a main teaching tool across our entire country, which Anne C. Westwater discusses in her review of Diane Ravitch's book The Language Police. She claims that textbooks have become too much of a front line teaching tool and should instead be used as a guide by the teacher to effectively teach the subject focus. The reason for this is twofold—teachers should be better trained in their area of expertise and not rely on a book to teach their children, but Westwater also claims that our textbooks are highly censored and therefore cannot offer a valuable education to our students.
Textbooks and Censoring
School Programs/Curricular Materials
Advocacy Groups in the School Setting
PTA
PTA, or Parent Teacher Association, is an organization designed to bring the community together to take part in the public school systems. The PTA raises money for events, helps out students and families in need, and helps make decisions that come up throughout the school year.
GLSEN
GLSEN, or Gay, Lesbian, & Straight Education Network, is an organization at schools across the country that aim to bring those with differing sexual preferences together. In an effort to combat bullying and discrimination they help create these school clubs and help pass school policies of acceptance and equal opportunity for all.
AFA
AFA, or American Family Association, is a religious organization aiming to put religious values back into the American culture. They claim that we now live in a world full of sexual freedom and immoral family values and they wish to change that by teaching God's word how they've interpreted it.
Conclusion
I have honestly never given textbook censorship this much thought. I find it hard to believe that textbooks are censored as intensely as Ravitch claims. I understand some of it, in that it is important to try to put information out there in an objective manner that will not offend those who are different. But some of the words she lists that are not allowed or places (such as a mountain, the sea) that could be considered partial to a particular audience kind of strikes me as strange. I'm thinking, there is no way this can be true. I plan to go to the library and try to check out early elementary textbooks and see what I can find.
This is a hard subject, because people that would seemingly be on the same side address completely different views. Consider the video above. This video talks about how the Islamic religion is portrayed in textbooks and how terrorism is not mentioned along with Islam. I was really offended by this, because although the terrorist groups that attacked us identified themselves with Islam, they were part of a branch of Islam that has a different goal of violence and hatred than does many other people of this religion. Diane Ravitch says the same thing, but in a different way. She agrees that more truth should be brought to textbooks about the terrorist attacks, but she also includes that those terrorists are a different branch of Islam than many other, peaceful people of the same religion.
Overall, we should be teaching our children truth so that they don't come into the real world with a jaded version of how things really are. This means advocacy in schools, and it means a straightforward and honest version of our history and the truths of the world, while using language that avoids offense when available.
Is this possible? It would mean those that want to protect offending those that are different coming together with those that don't wish to censor books and meeting in the middle.