Who's Writing our Textbooks?

The other day in English, we read a short article titled Textbook Wars. (Article) It talked mostly about the controversy surrounding textbooks: who should write them, and how we can find a curriculum that works for all kinds of people. Many social conservatives believe that most textbooks we use today reflect a generally liberal point of view. On the other hand, many liberals believe that conservatives are rewriting textbooks that fit better with their prejudices and opinions. It is a controversy that has been around for years and probably will be around for many more: whose perspective should be taught in school?

This is a conflict that is evident in many realms of education but one subject in which it is a particular issue is history. The author in this article talked about how history would be told differently if conservatives rather than liberals told it. If conservatives told history, Thomas Jefferson, who emphasized the separation between church and state, would not be a significant historical while Ronald Reagan would be regarded as a “national hero”.

This idea really struck me. I have never really thought of our historical textbooks as taking on a liberal point of view. But then again, if this were the way it had always been taught how would we know the difference? This history that we have learned in school is what is normal to us. This is the history that we know as true so any other version of it would sound wrong or conservatively biased. However, we can’t really make that judgment if the history we know as true is liberally biased. Ironically enough, it seems like history would be the least controversial topic to teach because it is strictly based on facts rather than opinion, theories and ideas. But if we are picking and choosing what to teach, we are indirectly formulating a bias, whether that be a liberal bias or a conservative bias.

I think the main question we need to ask ourselves is when we read a history book, who is the narrator? Who is telling the story? Is the interpretation of history we get in school really the most neutral and unbiased one or is it a liberal interpretation? These are the kinds of things we need to consider in our education system. Perspective is essential in history and before we take what is fed to us as true, we should evaluate the perspective it is coming from and who’s interpretation we are really getting.