Tag: Education

An Interview on Teaching about Controversial Subjects in Today’s Political Climate

An Interview on Teaching about Controversial Subjects in Today’s Political Climate

by Sepideh Yasrebi and Alan Singer

Sepideh Yasrebi: Given your extensive work on curriculum design in social studies education both as a former teacher and an academic, how do you understand the role of narrative—both dominant and counter-narratives—in representing or resisting ideology in the classroom?

Alan Singer: I think your point is that history is very much a story about the past. The difference between history as practiced by historians and cultural indoctrination as championed in Donald Trump’s vision of teaching patriotic history is that historians start with questions about the past and present and examine the past seeking answers to their questions in an effort to understand the present. Historians always have a point of view, but in a scientific approach to understanding the past, you always must be prepared to rethink your views based on data and analysis.

What this means in the social studies classroom is that we don’t want students to just accept what the textbook or curriculum says, but we want them to raise their own questions with the material they are being presented with. We also want to provide them with material from different perspectives so that they learn to weigh the validity of different explanations. Our goal is for them to think like historians to prepare them to be active citizens in a democratic society. At the end of the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was asked what type of government the delegates had created. Franklin’s reply reverberates today. Franklin said, “A republic, if you can keep it.” We need to equip students so the United States will remain a democracy, if they can keep it.

Sepideh Yasrebi: Fredric Jameson’s concept of cognitive mapping invites individuals to represent, however incompletely, their relationship to the broader social and ideological totality. How might this idea be translated into meaningful classroom practice? In other words, how can social studies curriculum and pedagogy help students connect their lived experiences to larger historical and structural forces in ways that foster critical historical thinking and agency?

Alan Singer: I used to promise high school students that at one point during the school year, they, their families, and the groups they identified with would be part of the curriculum – and the students held me to it. Sometimes it was difficult to include some of the most recent immigrant groups, but when we came to changes in immigration to the United States in 1965, I invited students from newer immigrant groups to be part of a panel where they explained their families experience leaving their homeland and coming to the United States. The class would then compare the push and pull factors of the newer immigrant groups with groups we had studied in early waves of immigration. Working with teacher in the Hofstra program, we adapted this idea for elementary and middle school students. In those grades we created family artifact museums. Each student brought a material object to class that was important to their family culture. They created a museum card describing the artifact, and students traveled around the room learning about each other’s cultures.

Sepideh Yasrebi: Are national and state social studies standards helpful or a hindrance in achieving social studies learning goals?

There are no national social studies standards in the United States so each state Department of Education develops their own. I am most familiar with New York State and New Jersey social studies standards which both strongly support document-based instruction, promoting critical thinking, and preparing students for full participation as citizens. National organizations like the National Council for the Social Studies, the American Historical Association, and the Organization of American Historians also promote these goals. Unfortunately, even though they are in the standards does not mean that we see them in practice in classrooms. Too much of teaching centers on preparing students for state and national reading skill exams that are used to evaluate school districts, schools, and teachers.

Sepideh Yasrebi: What tensions do you observe between traditional “fact-based” approaches to history education and more interpretive, narrative-driven models—especially in today’s sociopolitical climate? How do you navigate these tensions in teacher preparation program?

Alan Singer: I think the two keys are building respectful classroom communities where students can have open dialogues and creation of document packages with different perspectives on difficult issues for students and teachers to evaluate. I generally will only offer my opinion as part of a community discussion if I believe it opens up the discussion. Generally, I will include documents that express views similar to my own in the package so I never have to express my ideas, they are already there for students to evaluate.

Sepideh Yasrebi: How do you teach preservice teachers to allow their students to be critical thinkers in a society that does not seem to value critical thinking?

Alan Singer: I recognize that the function of schooling in any society is to perpetuate that society by inculcating the hegemonic values of that society. In the United States schools are expected to reinforce dominant beliefs including that the system is fair, people achieve success based on merit, and that anyone can achieve through hard work. Part of this belief system is that if an individual fails it is their own fault or because of their own inadequacy. Too often I have heard teachers say “I didn’t fail you. You failed you. I only entered the grade.” A critical approach to history and social studies includes questioning these beliefs. Martin Luther King Jr. called on people challenging the dominant ideas of society to employ “creative maladjustment,” identify with the expressed values of society, but interpret them in your own way. Herbert Kohl applied the idea of creative maladjustment to the classroom. He recommended that teachers use the language of the standards but interpret them in ways that allow you to connect with your students and engage them in necessary conversations about the past and present.

Sepideh Yasrebi: In this study, I define narrative competence not just as the ability to tell stories, but as the capacity to critically situate those stories within broader historical and ideological contexts. From your perspective, how can curriculum and pedagogy foster this kind of competence in students? Are there particular texts, historical narratives, or teaching practices you’ve found especially effective in supporting this work—or that you help teacher candidates implement in their own classrooms?

Alan Singer: I see reading as a conversation with an author or document. I tell students that they are not just reading to learn information and answer the questions that I ask, but to formulate their own questions, ask the author, see if the answer is in the text, and if they are not satisfied with an answer, develop a strategy to discover what they want to know. Similarly, writing is a form of edited thinking. Write down your ideas. Don’t be afraid of spelling, grammar, or uncertainty. But after you write them down, edit them so they make sense to you. Then edit them again into formal language that will make your ideas accessible to other people. This makes it possible to extend our conversation to a broader audience. To facilitate this approach, I organize teams of writing buddies who read each other’s work, suggest corrections, but also point out points that need greater explanation.

Again, the practices you want to see in classrooms will only happen when there is respectful dialogue. Our goal is to learn together, to share ideas, not to win or to silence others. That type of community can take a while to build, but it is essential if students are to become critical historians and responsible citizens in a democratic society. I never lecture. When I talk to much it means I failed to design an effective lesson plan. My role in the classroom is to introduce material and question students as they evaluate primary and secondary source material. What does the text say? What does the text mean? What are your views of the text? What is the evidence presented to support the author’s view? What is the evidence to support your views?

Sepideh Yasrebi: What does a culturally sustaining approach to social studies education look like to you, particularly in relation to multilingual and racialized students whose identities have often been marginalized in U.S. schools? Do you believe CSP has been meaningfully incorporated into social studies teacher education? What are the shortcomings?

Alan Singer: I discussed this earlier with suggestions for student panels and a family artifact museum. I want to share an anecdote that helped me better understand a culturally sustaining approach to teaching. I grew up in the 1950s in the shadow of the European Holocaust. We were a Jewish family that never discussed the Nazi extermination of Jews. It wasn’t until I was in college that I learned from my grandfather that his father and most of their village were murdered by German troops including my grandfather’s brother’s wife and her two children. Growing up in the shadow of the Holocaust there was family silence and embarrassment at our victimization when we learned about it in high school. It wasn’t until Israel emerged as a significant force in world affairs in the 1960s that my peers and I stopped seeing Jews as just victims. When I was a high school social studies teacher, I always included an extended unit on slavery in the United States. One year an African American young woman challenged me in class and wanted to know why the only time Black people were included in the curriculum was to show how they were slaves. I asked her to talk to me after class to discuss how we could approach this differently. She and some of her friends met with me and I realized their reaction to learning about enslavement was very similar to mine learning about the Holocaust in high school. We decided together that I needed to change the focus of the unit from oppression to include resistance, especially by Black abolitionists.

This was my journey, but in answer to your question, it is not forcefully incorporated into state and national curricula and it is not the experience and understanding that many other teachers bring to the classroom. One group that promotes this approach to teaching is Rethinking Schools which also sponsors the Zinn Education Project.

Sepideh Yasrebi: How do you mentor future teachers to critically reflect on their own ideological positionings? How can teacher education programs support this view?

Alan Singer: Many of the prospective teachers in my teacher education program are very nervous about addressing controversial topics like racism, responses to immigration, or actions by the Trump administration that are constitutionally questionable in the classroom. No one wants to be targeted by Fox News or risk losing their job because of parental complaints. I stress that they have to know their stuff and be prepared to explain why they introduced the topics, questions, and documents they use in their lessons. The first step when they plan a lesson is to ask themselves, what is important to know and why? I also recommend that if they are unsure about a lesson, they should discuss their ideas with their department chair so if there are complaints, the department chair can explain the lesson approach, how it included multiple perspectives on the topic, and addressed state learning standards. I prepared a lesson on the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling barring federal district court universal injunctions that opened the way for the Trump administration to ignore the 14th amendment’s granting of citizenship to all people born in the United States. In the lesson, students are provided with excerpts from the majority opinion of the Supreme Court written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett and dissenting opinions by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson. I strongly agree with Sotomayor and Jackson that the Court’s decision, by granting the Trump administration the unchecked power to pursue highly questionable goals, is a threat to the rule of law in the United States, but I don’t plan to add my views to the discussion. The lesson is designed to show prospective teachers how to organize a conversation on a controversial topic like this and how to include multiple perspectives in their document packages.

Book Review: On This Ground: Hardship and Hope at the Toughest Prep School in America, by Anthony DePalma

On This Ground

By Anthony DePalma

Published by Harper Collins, 2026. 249 pages

Reviewed by Hank Bitten, NJCSS Executive Director

The first pages of On This Ground engage the reader in the spiritual identity of children seeking an understanding about life in the world into which they were born. It is also an eyewitness account about how Newark became ‘the worst city in America’ in the 1960s.  The first pages of this book provide an historical understanding of Newark but also of cities throughout New Jersey and the United States.

The reflections on education at St. Benedict Prep have value regarding an understanding of the core values, purpose, mission, and vision of all schools. Every teacher will find lessons in the passion and dedication of the faculty who are committed to caring, serving, and teaching. By Page 21, I was reliving the movie of “Sister Act” regarding the passion of nuns serving the people of Los Angeles. Also, my memories of “Welcome Back Kotter”, “Abbot Elementary”, “School of Rock”, “Mr. Holland’s Opus”, “Stand and Deliver”, “Dead Poet’s Society”, and “Up the Down Staircase” each flashed across my mind as I began reading On This Ground! It was an amazing flashback to my own experiences as a teacher.

Chapter 2 is the historical account of the 1967 Newark riots.  In this chapter we learn of the German immigrant population that came to Newark in the 19th century, the dominance of the beer industry, the migration in the 1920’s to Newark from the South, and the flight to the suburbs that came with interstate highways and airports. It is one of the best descriptive accounts of continuity and change over time of an American city because of its conciseness and accuracy.

The account of the riots is important for the story of St. Benedict’s Prep School but also for every resident in New Jersey to understand and synthesize. The riots left 26 people dead and 700 injured. Entire blocks were destroyed with property damage totaling $10 million or about $100 million in today’s money.  Over 1,400 residents were arrested. Teenage unemployment was about 50%. The white landlords and store owners moved out of Newark to the suburbs and local taxes to fund the essential services and public schools disappeared. The pain of the “Long hot summer of 1967” continued for years. The local government had limited authority and resources, the state government formed the Lilley Commission which identified social, political, and economic issues to be the underlying causes for the riots, and the Kerner Commission led to a national conversation about race and poverty, concluding that in the United States we had two separate and unequal societies.

We walk through the halls of St. Benedict’s Prep with Anthony DePalma to the Shanley Gym where the voices of students from the past and present are heard. Everyone who reads On This Ground will discover the power of love in the culture of this school, the importance of empowering students to make decisions, and how a cohesive community unites and energizes young scholars and athletes. When teachers care and listen to their students, everyone works toward the same goal. Through situations involving cheating, vaping, and texting inappropriate messages, Anthony DePalma guides us through the steps that make a difference in the lives of students; even those who are resistant.

The stories of the hardships of students, disciplinary decisions, the integration of girls from a small Roman Catholic school in neighboring Elizabeth, helping families with limited financial resources, and prayers for healing are not unique to St. Benedict’s. The strategies of how the faculty and headmaster handled these situations is unique. St. Benedict’s connects students and teachers as a community of learners. Anthony DePalma explicitly illustrates the dedication of the educators at St. Benedict’s in an environment where teachers are ‘called’ to serve, even though their college education may not include preparation for urban schools. Other schools will find value in learning how the daily morning faculty meeting discusses the needs of students, the importance of the ‘convocation’ that gathers students together with opportunities for leadership, the overnight experience in the mountains that brings the students together, and how problem-solving includes conversations between students, parents, and administrators.

Beyond the journey through the halls and classrooms are the insights into the lives of young children facing the addictive behaviors of parents, injuries from gun wounds, foster care homes, temporary living conditions, food insecurity, and unemployment. The crisis in our schools and cities is not part of the evening news or the discussions around the dinner table, office, or places of worship. Illiteracy is a crisis in America and perhaps this book will awaken interest.

In New Jersey, 3% of high school students drop out of school by their sophomore year in high school. Source

In New Jersey, 437,000 students (26%) are receiving supplemental food daily. Source

Approximately 1/3 of students in New Jersey are living with single parents or their parents are in prison, rehabilitation, or are unemployed. Source

In New York City, 45% of the students are ‘chronically absent.’  Source

17% of third through eighth graders in the United States are chronically absent because of mental health issues. Many are from suburban homes and excellent school districts. Source

Examine the data (2023) from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis below: Source

Atlantic County, NJ36%Middlesex County, NJ24%
Bergen County, NJ21%Monmouth County, NJ20%
Burlington County, NJ27%Morris County, NJ15%
Camden County, NJ37%Ocean County, NJ20%
Cape May County, NJ30%Passaic County, NJ38%
Cumberland County, NJ46%Salem County, NJ41%
Essex County, NJ40%Somerset County, NJ18%
Gloucester County, NJ29%Sussex County, NJ21%
Hudson County, NJ33%Union County, NJ32%
Hunterdon County, NJ17%Warren County, NJ27%
Mercer County, NJ29%

On This Ground engages readers to think about the moral and spiritual poverty that is in our country. Towards the end of the book there is an account of a freshman girl who loved to dance but had been disadvantaged in many ways. She overcame several obstacles in her persistence to establish the first cheerleading team at St. Benedict’s. It is a story of moral and spiritual strength and the power of perseverance and determination. The stories of alumni, Anthony Badger, Bob Brennan, and Leon McBurrows remind us that life is challenging because we are human and our humanity is complex.

As I am reading the words of Anthony DePalma, I am thinking of the children who are disconnected from reality. I am also thinking of the 14-year-old freshman entering high school in September 2026 who will only be age 28 in the year 2040. The message for me in On This Ground is the importance of teaching about character, kindness, self-esteem, decision-making, and personal identity. The  institutions for helping children and their families with these lessons are our local schools and places of worship. The importance of teachers, clergy, custodians, crossing guards, cafeteria workers, bus drivers, coaches, are essential to connecting young people to a productive life.

America is faced with a crisis of illiteracy and the adage that schools teach reading, writing, and arithmetic is for a different time in our history. The challenges of artificial intelligence, substances, obesity, food insecurity, a warmer climate, and what we spend our money on, are overwhelming! 

The story of St. Benedict’s Preparatory School provides optimism and hope. The links below are videos about the story in On This Ground.

Guided by The Rule (Seton Hall)

Newark High School is Unlike Any Other (CBS 60 Minutes)

Saint Benedict’s Preparatory School (Documentary: Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly)

Book Review: Review of Student Research for Community Change: Tools to Develop Ethical Thinking and Analytic Problem Solving

Review of Student Research for Community Change: Tools to Develop Ethical Thinking and Analytic Problem Solving

by William Tobin and Valerie Feit, 2020.  Teachers College Press, 127 pages. 

Review by: Thomas Hansen, Ph.D.

This new text provides an explanation of a program – and a plan – for getting high school students involved in important hands-on research right in their communities.  The two authors have become experts in encouraging young people to start on research early – not waiting for college.  Despite more traditional approaches of letting students wait to become upperclassmen in college, the authors learned to forge ahead and assume students could do this work.

William Tobin is a research fellow with the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University.  The program explained in this book is an example of the community work Tobin and his students have been doing to help their neighbors.  Valerie Feit is co-director of school counseling for Rye Neck, New York schools.  This program has been used successfully in three different applications at Duke.

The authors talk in terms of “tools” for coming up with research problems and questions, plans for finding out information, and guidance in making recommendations to solve the problems (pp. 23-24).  I think of this book’s content in terms of methods for approaching the work.  This looks like a method, with many parts, with rules, with suggestions, and with potential.

The authors provide tools for this “method” of teaching and learning they hope will be applicable in other settings.  They have already had students complete research projects using this method.  They use a qualitative approach, overall, in their research.  However, they do not stress this fact in the book.  Interviews and protocols to conduct them ground us in qualitative approaches to getting information from people to help students – and the community ultimately — solve problems. 

The method connects clearly (in terms of policy and application) to national standards in the different learning areas, plus Common Core college-ready and work-ready emphases.  The method looks forward to more advanced levels of inquiry than the more traditional benchmarked studies of the past.  It does this by assuming students can do more advanced and challenging work if they can see the purpose for it, the rewards for it, and the connections of it to real-life goals. 

While I will not give away the content and all the goods here, I will say that this appears to be a good “method” for getting students working on purposeful projects earlier than traditionally done.  Aspiring to more is always good, especially if there is a research basis telling us the method can work. 

As an educator (and community member, advocate, and other roles) I have always been interested in the “why” of doing things in education.  Do we respect different learning styles?  Where did we as teachers “learn” to do xyz in classes?  Is  there a good research basis for using certain materials?  Has anyone ever proven it makes sense to do abc this way?  All of these kinds of questions enter my mind when I look at a new approach.  I wonder if this book could work in my neighborhood.  With students who need resources like a place to live?  In a community not very interested in helping others in need?  

The authors emphasize how they have already served communities and how they need partners and cooperation.  They remind us that institutions of higher education are supposed to be helping with such endeavors (p. 111).  Reminding the readers that IHEs have non-profit status because they are supposed to be assisting in important research projects in the community, the authors urge readers to seek faculty who will sign on and become excited to participate.

I would recommend this book for a couple different uses.  First, I would encourage K-12 and college educators read it to see what is possible if we assume students can do more and can meet challenges.  The book is important in that way.  Second, I would encourage educators to attempt to use some of the tools in a mini-project to ascertain the value of the method.  Then, if teachers and college researchers or others can come together to formulate a bigger project, more in-depth labor can be done.  Students do the work and need guidance and advice.  They need to learn about ethics and the role it plays in inquiry (pp. 12-13). 

This method, overall, is another good example of the more mature and advanced kinds of ways of thinking about education for secondary students and underclassmen.  As I said above, there is a clear connection to getting students ready for what comes at more advanced levels.

How to use the book in times of distance-learning?  How would students find neighbors interested in participating?  How would they work with other students to come up with questions?  What about brainstorming?  Planning?

This might be a method that calls for a hybrid approach.  The majority of the discussions could occur online (p. xvii) because of the power of the Internet.  This could be done especially during shared times – online meetings.  Different teams of students and teachers could work on different steps or themes of the research project.  However, it might be necessary to be out in the community to approach potential members and to set up some of the meetings (pp. 112-113) and the interviews.  The teams could conduct the remaining work online, such as the interviews, the discussion of them and other input, the drawing of conclusions from the various input sources, the writing of recommendations for intervention (or similar activities), and the follow-up and assessment stages for the entire project.   

Book Review: Teach, Reflect, Learn: Building Your Capacity for Success in the Classroom

Review of Teach, Reflect, Learn: Building Your Capacity for Success in the Classroom

by Pete Hall & Alisa Simeral.  Alexandria, VA: ASCD.  2015, paper, 178 pages.  

Reviewed by Thomas Hansen, Ph.D.

Hall and Simeral have set forth here three major stages to helping teachers reflect on what they are doing in an effort to improve the instruction in the classroom.  The authors hope to help teachers learn how to reflect on a regular basis as part of the self-assessment process in which teachers should engage.  Included are lots of scenarios of teachers and their comments about why things are working—or not—in their classrooms.

As in most of my reviews, I try to not give away all the content.  Here, I will list the names of the nine main chapters of the book: If You Can Read This, Thank a Teacher; Reflections on Self-Reflection; Reflective Self-Assessment Tool; The Continuum of Self-Reflection; The Unaware Stage: What Does Unaware Mean, Anyway?; The Conscious Stage: Is the Knowing-Doing Gap Real?; The Action Stage: What Happens When Art and Science Collide?; and The Refinement Stage: Smoothing Out the Rough Edges.

Having attended a Jesuit institution for my Ph.D. in Education, I will have to admit I am fully aware of reflection as a major component of the teaching-improvement process.  In most all of my courses, I had to reflect on what I had said, or written, or taught, or done.  It was a very interesting reminder of the reflection process many successful and hard-working good educators already use in one form or another.

Most good teachers will admit they are always trying to improve their skills, whether it is coming up with better ways to explain a phenomenon or inventing better ways to let students come to their understanding of how a process works.  Good teachers probably apply it to their writing and their research and their service, also.  At least that is what the literature says.

Becoming more efficient is important, and this book does have some interesting hints about looking at learning situations with different lenses.  I recommend the book as a sort of self-study book, especially for teachers who want to consider some alternatives to learning about new methods or new materials.  Sometimes it has to do more with looking directly at how we as individuals do our work.  Once we have considered that, we can look outward.

I would recommend this text also in group settings where there are several different short paperbacks and small groups get to choose a book to discuss.  The readings in this and similar shorter texts can be a good starting point for considering what it is we are doing in the classroom.  Enjoyable and fruitful also are the stories of what other teachers use for methods and materials.

In a recent professional development session I worked on, several of the teachers said, “We never have enough time to talk to each other, simply about what we are doing in our classrooms.”  I think this is a good message for principals and others charged with PD and other sessions for teachers.  Helping them to reflect can be facilitated by books like this one by Hall and Simeral. 

Book Review – Erasing History: How Fascist Rewrite the Past to Control the Future by Jason Stanley

Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future

By Jason Stanley

Reviewed by Hank Bitten, NJCSS Executive Director

“Wars are won by teachers.” Vladimir Putin

This quote published in the Washington Post on May 7, 2024 is the opening statement in Chapter 1 of Erasing History. It is a powerful statement and thesis for this book and a compelling reason for teachers to read the arguments presented by Jason Stanley, Yale University Professor of Philosophy. There are numerous examples in this book explaining the biased perspective of American history regarding Black Americans, Latinx, Native Americans, women, children, etc. and there are examples of how history has been erased in Kenya, Palestine, India, China, and Ukraine.

Every teacher of U.S. history teaches the different views of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois to assimilate into American society at the turn of the 20th century. However, the perspective presented by Jason Stanley offers students in our classes the opportunity for a critical debate regarding two different paths towards assimilation.

“In his public writings, Washington urged Black Americans to prioritize industrial education over political education, and thus to place greater emphasis on their productive potential as workers than on their identity as democratic citizens.  As Du Bois saw it, this approach served white supremacy.  He counseled Black American citizens instead to seek a liberal education, whose purpose was not only to elevate the soul but also to give them skills to democratically advance their own interests.” (page 39)

Some societies and governments favor a part of their population as the dominant or protected class and discount or “erase” the contributions of other people in their state. The technological advances of artificial intelligence present new challenges for teachers as history can easily be revised from quoting textbooks, historical papers, and extremist views from the past and make them appear as valid scholarship.  The increasing popularity of PraegerU is an example of how school districts, Departments of Education, and individual teachers are accepting the information and lessons provided by non-academic institutions. Teachers have a unique responsibility and position because they are trusted by students and what they say is transformed from sight and sound to memory.

Teachers will find the historiography and analysis of the concepts of nationalism, American exceptionalism, and colonialism to be helpful for the development of lesson plans in both U.S. history and world history. It is less about ‘erasing’ history than changing history or emphasizing certain historical themes while ignoring others. Curriculum designers and teachers have both power and responsibility in how lessons are structured, implemented, and assessed. One example from the book is including the “I Have a Dream” speech by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and ignoring his many contributions in the civil rights movement.

This is an important debate regarding assimilation in a society with a dominant class. A current example is the debate of how the working class earning an hourly wage without benefits can assimilate into the middle class. Is the best way to address this through subsidized education, new tax policies, or paying a living wage?

Teachers must have a strong content background in the westward movement, labor, Reconstruction, civil rights, Ukraine, Palestine, etc. to be aware of what is missing in the sources and resources they are using with students. The example below provides different points of view on the 1932-33 engineered famine that killed millions of people in Ukraine.

“The most significant of these omissions pertains to Holodomor a genocide of the Ukrainian people, in which millions of Ukrainian peasants starved to death after Stalin demanded draconian requisitions of grain from them, knowing full well that this would have devastating consequences. In Ukrainian and Russian, the term “Holodomor” consists of two parts: “famine” and “to kill” or “make someone suffer” – the closest translation is essentially “someone making others starve intentionally.”  Importantly, although the word “Holodomor” and the tragedy it represents are well known throughout both countries, Russian textbooks describe the event using the generic term for “famine,” implying that Holodomor was merely a bureaucratic accident, and one that affected all of the USSR equally.  In Ukrainian textbooks, it is represented as a famine that Stalin inflicted specifically upon the Ukrainians, which is considerably closer to the truth.” (pages 67-68)

Fascism is not taught is most high schools and college courses may not have provided this instruction for teachers. Fascism, socialism, Marxism, communism, and Naziism are critical movements in world history and they are complicated to teach because the are not monolithic. Professor Stanley provides five major themes that are part of a fascist education: (page 78)

  1. National greatness
  2. National purity
  3. National innocence
  4. Strict gender roles
  5. Vilification of the left

The strategy that wins the support of people is often fear and patriotism.  In the United States, the theme of national greatness is most visible with “Make America Great Again” and defining the United States as the greatest nation or what is defined as American exceptionalism.  However, associating crime, poverty, homelessness, unemployment, etc. with a specific demographic group is part of the fascist goal of national purity. In Germany, it was the Aryan population.  In the United States it is critical race theory, structural racism, and making white Americans feel guilty. We see the theme of strict gender roles in the directives to teach traditional roles of women and banning references to the contributions of the LGBTQ persons. The placing of blame for everything on a past president or a specific political party is another effective strategy. Teachers should be aware of these five signs and why populations embrace it.

President Trump delivered a speech in September 2020 when he introduced the White House Conference on American History. Particularly, in the 250th anniversary year of the signing of the declaration of Independence, teachers need to be aware of how President Trump understands the teaching of patriotic history.

“Our mission is to defend the legacy of America’s founding, the virtue of America’s heroes, and the nobility of the American character.  We must clear away the twisted web of lies in our schools and classrooms, and teach our children the magnificent truth about our country.  We want our sons and daughters to know that they are citizen of the most exceptional nation in the history of the world.” (page 81)

Erasing History dedicates three chapters to the importance of education in both preventing and promoting authoritarian rulers or advocating against democracy and for authoritarianism. Teachers of social studies, history, and literature have a responsibility to recognize bias and ignorance and to select the sources and perspectives that lead to an understanding of the American values of equality, liberty, and the rule of law.

“The dismantling of public education is backed by oligarchs and business elites alike, who see in democracy a threat to their power, and in the taxes required for public goods a threat to their wealth.  Public schools are the foundational democratic public good.  It is therefore perfectly logical that those who are opposed to democracy, including fascist and fascist-leaning movements, would join forces with right-wing libertarians in undermining the institution of public education entirely.” (pages 121,122)

The movement for school vouchers, criticisms of curriculum, the attack on the 1619 Project, and the emphasis on America’s greatness contribute to distrust about public schools and confuses parents.

“The goal of anti-education is not only to render a population ignorant of the nation’s history and problems but also to fracture those citizens into a multitude of different groups with no possibility of mutual understanding, and hence no possibility of mass unified action. As a consequence, anti-education renders a population apathetic – leaving the task of running the country to others, be they autocrats, plutocrats, or theocrats.” (page 133)

I found Professor Stanley’s analysis of classical education to be exceptional. The extreme right and the extreme left (and those in between) support the teaching of Greek and Roman civilizations. What I found interesting is how each side selects the leaders and documents that support their perspective of government. For example, Pericles Funeral Oration describes Athenian democracy:


“Its administration favors the many instead of the few; this is why it is called a democracy.  If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences; if to social standing, advancement in public life fall to reputation for capacity, class considerations not being allowed to interfere with merit; nor again does poverty bar the way, if a man is able to serve the state, he is not hindered by the obscurity of his condition….We throw open our city to the world, and never by alien acts exclude foreigners from any opportunity of learning or observing…while in education, where our rivals from their very cradles by a painful discipline seek after manliness, at Athens we live exactly as we please, and yet are just as ready to encounter every legitimate danger.” (page 143)

While the above speech favors democracy, others look to Plato as evidence of a strong ruler with a clear authoritarian philosophy.  The Greeks and Romans supported gender and racial superiority, owned slaves, favored landowners and intellectuals, and had colonies. These examples support a fascist ideology. Teachers have the responsibility to teach historical context, provide the reasons for social changes, help students to analyze how freedom is related to continuity and change over time, and an understanding of equality, reason, liberty, and power. Concepts we thought had clear definitions have become complicated.

There are more compelling insights in this book than I can comment on in a book review. Teachers of all subjects should read this book, but in particular history, social studies, and teachers of literature. Pre-service teachers also need to read and discuss this book.  Let me conclude with these observations:

  1. Critical thinking is essential.
  2. Understanding a point of view and historical perspective are essential.
  3. The current movement away from democracy has been part of our American history for a long time. We see it in the separate but equal policy on race, segregation laws, imperialism, xenophobia, criticisms of the New Deal, Brown v. Board of Education decision, McCarthyism, civil rights protests, Nixon’s imperial presidency, supply-side economics, and in the reaction to the decline of the United States as a world power.
  4. Democracy ended in Athens, and in the Roman Republic. We need to understand how and why this happened.

As a teacher of history and/or social studies, you are on the front line and can expect to be criticized! Our responsibility as teachers is to include the experiences and contributions of all people – especially women, children, immigrants, people of different faiths, Black and Native Americans, laborers, individuals with disabilities, individuals who are LGBTQ, etc. Teaching history includes compassion, empathy, struggles, contributions, and the untold stories that you will discover. Erasing History is about forgotten and neglected history.

Telling School Tales: Rural School History Research

Telling School Tales: Rural School History Research

Casey Thomas Jakubowski

In 1998, my first teaching position in Little Valley Central School District in Cattaraugus County New York, as a social studies instructor led to a career exploring the nooks and hollows of educational history across the Empire State (Jakubowski, 2020; 2023). The former school district is part of the Appalachian region of New York State, which includes 14 counties from Lake Erie to the Catskills. This district was undertaking an annexation study, or school district reorganization attempt in my first year. I knew nothing of these events, and was unaware that there was a nearly 100 year history of rural school reform focusing on creating more urban-like schools in rural areas (Jakubowski, 2020).  The first major community activity surrounding a reorganization, or merger is the Boards of Education voting to undergo a study. After the districts are presented with the study, the Board then votes to accept the study. If this passes both boards, it is sent to the community in a non binding, or advisory vote (straw). When the straw vote passed in both Cattaraugus and Little Valley, people began to protest outside the school every morning and evening, to “save the panthers” or to “save the heart of LV” as I remember the sign read. My students were pulled from extracurriculars by their parents in order to protest the potential merging of the two districts, Cattaraugus to the north, and Little Valley, a one building K-12 district with just under 300 students. When the “binding vote” happened that year, and the Cattaraugus community defeated the proposed measure, we wondered, “What next?”

I left the district that fall, to move to central New York, and once again, a school centralization impacted my life. A family member’s teaching position was abolished, because the five year moratorium had expired. After a few resignations and retirements, the family member was once again employed. This is an all too unfortunate reality across Appalachia’s schools, as decreasing population, and wealth decline usually results in less money for school budgets, and personnel.  I was once again wondering “What next?” This time, I used a Masters level research paper (unpublished, 2004)[1] to begin to pursue what has been a twenty-year scholarly chase through the rural, upstate, and state education department policy of recommending schools which are, according to the 1947 and 1958 Master Plan for School District Reorganization, too small to produce efficient, or effective programming for their children[2]). I also learned that New York State’s policy towards rural districts is as Fulkerson & Thomas (2019) describe it “urban normative” or the urban areas are the norm, and should be promoted as an ideal form of local government.[3] So I dug deep, and researched cases of successfully undertaken and defeated centralizations, or consolidations, or mergers, or reorganizations.[4] The history of why so many reorganizations failed post 1960 became an obsession. I learned from my pursuit of the 20th and 21st century of educational history of New York two major tracks: most educational historians write on the early period (founding of New York as a colony to just after World War I) and second, the state’s citizens have experienced some major fights with the state bureaucratic system in Albany over really basic issues of democracy, local control, and what citizenship means.

Telling tales out of school, as the title implies is often thought of as a negative, and uncivilized approach, yet I view these two tales, about Kiantone and Morganville, as critical, and very necessary to explain some of the basic urban rural divide of New York State, and further the rural anger deployed at government, which observers believe is current, but is actually rooted in Post World War II actions by the the State Education Department.[5]

The State of New York has, as Tracy Steffes writes in her seminal work, been interested since the late 1800s in “reforming” rural schools through strategic aid packages to develop longer terms and more “professional” schools in rural areas.[6] Thomas Mauhs-Pugh described how the local school governing boards were once held as exemplars, because they created “12,000 little republics” that taught governing principles at the local level.[7] Benjamin Justice combed the archive to discover how religious governing practices amongst local Board of Education members often resulted in appeals to the State Education Department.[8] Heffernan’s article on the conflict between State Education Department expectations for school facilities and local board’s realities describe how dissonance started in the early 20th century between the professionals and the public.[9]  Chiles’ work on Progressive era school reform describes how Gov. Smith undertook school reform in rural areas as a signature effort among his governorship, and later presidential aspirations.[10] Loveland’s dissertation on the transition between the State Superintendent for Education to the University of the State of New York’s Commissioner of Education and President is a landmark in describing how the first three leaders at the newly created State Education Department had created a policy of rural school reform[11]. As Parkerson & Parkerson wrote in the crucial book on rurals school reform, the “ABCs” or Assessment, bureaucracy and consolidation, have haunted, especially in New York, rural schools who try to survive in the midst of population decline, decreasing wealth, and state policy which relies on a long standing deficit narrative, which Biddle & Azano expose as more than 100 years old.[12]

Having learned about the New York Master Plan for School District Reorganization (which is still in effect in 2023) I began to explore areas close to where I was living at the time, namely Genesee County, and discovered a huge gap in my understanding of the creation of the present day accepted “Central School Districts.” Many New Yorkers take for granted these post-Depression era created districts, many of which did not assume final form until the midst of the Cold War. These often hyphenated schools recall a vague history, or “mystic chords of memory” as Kammen would call it,[13] of the past, prior to the baby boomers (post World War II) entering school and gaining an affiliation as members of those relatively newly created schools. As Osterude describes in a profound work on the Broome County area, identity, and affinity moved from community to the newly created school districts, often built outside of town, and the social hub of the area.[14]  Yet I know from my own experience (auto ethnographic history?)[15] the process must not have been smooth, or why would perfectly rational people hold so closely to an identity or mascot, as much of the national research claimed was the reason centralizations/ consolidations/ mergers are defeated?

Seeking to understand school history, as Carol Kammen, or David Kyvig[16] calls “nearby history” led me to the Genesee County Archives, where I discovered the Morganville Question. At the bottom of the Byron Bergen Central School District 1958 Master Plan entry was a footnote, which caught my attention:

By alteration of boundary, effective Sept. 17, 1951, all of the property in the Town of Stafford, formerly C2 Stafford, was transferred from CS 1 Byron to CS 1 Le Roy. (p. 301).[17]

After meeting with the Genesee County historian, and reading the records from the New York State Archive on the town of Stafford, I went to the town historian, and museum and learned a bit about this “school tale.”[18]

            Stafford 2, Morganville, was one of the wealthier common schools in the area. A community with a pottery manufacturing center, and a two room schoolhouse, the community provided a grade 1-6 education to their children. In a tuition agreement very common until the creation of centralized school districts, and the birth of a semi modern high school in each C.S.D, Morganville partnered with South Byron by sending their secondary students for instruction. When the Centralization petition was launched, the Stafford 2 district residents overwhelmingly voted no, and wanted to maintain their two room schoolhouse, and independence. In records, memos, telegrams, and newspaper reports of the time period, the fight between Morganville (Stafford 2) and SED heated up, and became a back and forth with the end result of the community locking the South Byron Board of Education employee teacher out of the building. The parents refused to send their children.[19] The local school district superintendent, who is a field based representative of the commissioner of education, was on the side of the Stafford 2 (Morganville) representatives.

            The archival records in Genesee county, and the State Archives in Albany record the back and forth memos and telegrams of the bureaucracy and the local residents trying to enter into a positive, less public solution. What became the clue to a second quest was a note on one of the memos from senior SED officials to the bureau and the local superintendent: “We do not need another Kiantone.”[20] More on Kiantone below.

            What finally concluded the “Morganville question” was a bit of bureaucracy, and the intervention of a neighboring district. LeRoy, a larger village in Genesee County, had a well developed secondary school, as befitting an Erie Canal town home to the creators of Jell-o. The leaders of LeRoy offered free transportation and free tuition for schooling to any family in Stafford 2 who could transport their children to the boundary line. Using this subtle recruiting technique, the narrative from Morganville changed from “independent” to “LeRoy” as their demands for a school centralization destination. In one of the communications between the Morganville leaders and SED, the justification given for the break in the previous relationship with South Byron was the expectation of a better quality of secondary education for children at the LeRoy schools. South Byron was, in the opinion of the Morganville leaders, too small and not robust enough.[21]

            The bureaucratic support arrived in the form of the New York State Thruway Authority, and its construction of the mainline branch from Buffalo to Rochester. The layout of the Eisenhower Interstate system, a divided, limited access highway modeled on the autobahn, was a technology and transportation revolution in the United States post World War II. As the Morganville community and the State were seeking a solution to the “question” of where would the children attend school, the Thruway authority indicated that the disruption caused by construction of the thruway and the needed overpass bridges for state and local routes would be a long term logistical problem for Morganville Children to attend South Byron. The authority provided the State Education Department face saving “cover” to move Morganville (Stafford 2) student population to LeRoy. The Morganville residents celebrated a win, and the State Education Department reaffirmed that the Master Plan was a voluntary policy, and the districts presented in the plan were recommended[22].

            This situation was very different than just five years prior, where the Kiantone community south of Jamestown, in the Northern Appalachian region,  experienced the wrath of State Education Department, while participating in a “farmers rebellion” that brought to the fore questions of democracy, local self determination and the international questions of communism, and totalitarianism post World War II.

            Just south of Jamestown, of the “outlying” urban areas of New York State in the mid 1800s, Kiantone was a farming community along the Kiantone creek, with early settlers engaging in what Fox calls resource clearance in the areas of lumbering and then farming. The Kiantone residents erected seven Common Schools as part of the State enabling legislation. As Jamestown to the north, the residents began a long term tuitioning partnership with the secondary academy in Jamestown. Through World War I, and then World War II, the region provided significant material and manpower, and as a local furniture manufacturing hub in Buffalo, became a large urban center devoted to consumer products, and then the war efforts.  At the Fenton- Chautauqua County historical society, the story of Kiantone is well known, and is a special area to the research people, because it represents the hypocrisy of national policy and local actions.[23]

            During World War II, the Rapp-Coudert commission was charged by the New York state Legislature with rooting out communists among college professors in New York City. It also became the leading committee examining how to create a more efficient and effective public school system, with a focus on rural districts. After the New York State Board of Regents inquiry into the condition of public schools in the 1930s, at the height of the Great Depression, the report concluded that rural schools were extremely inefficient, and ineffective. Prior to the centralization movements of the 1930s-1970s, New York was home to a large number of smaller common schools, offering grades 1-6, and or tuitioning children out to neighboring districts. The Master Plan for School District Reorganization reported that in 1930, there were over 10,000 districts in New York State. By 1945, there were just over 5,000 (today, there are just under 700). At the secondary or 7-12 levels, parents would send children to villages based or academies for a secondary education focused on the Board of Regents curriculum and end of course exams introduced just after the Civil War, as Beadie describes. The Rapp Coudert commission established minimums to ensure efficient and effective spending on public education in the state. The commission, under the guise of a voluntary or recommended reorganization plan of 1947 (p. 18) created an organized plan to ensure that proposed districts would meet minimums in grades 1-6 and 7-12.  Those minimums include 1500 dollars for elementary programming and 1800 for secondary expenditures. The minimums for pupil enrollment recommended at least 1000 students in a district.[24] As these recommendations emerged during the World War II era (1941-1945) the final report and “Master Plan” was released in 1947.[25] As the Master Plan was established, residents in each proposed district could submit to the local District superintendent of schools a request to begin the centralization process. Kiantone, with its long standing relationship to Jamestown, had been included in the Frewsburg Central School District proposed area. After some initial negotiations, one of the Kiantone schools was moved to Jamestown,[26] but the rest were included with Frewsburg. 

 Trustees of the Common Schools, and residents,  vigorously opposed this arrangement, and felt, at the minimum, two major negatives precluded their inclusion with Frewsburg. First, the long relationship with Jamestown was primary. Second, the program in Jamestown was far superior to Frewsburg offerings. The Common School trustees in Kiantone refused to turn the key to the school over, and in August of 1948, the attorney for the Frewsburg Central School, accompanied by a “Phalanx” of New York State Troopers “crashed into a human barricade “ (Jamestown Post Journal, August 24, 1948).[27]  A scuffle resulted, with a World War I veteran, who was waving an American Flag, pushed to the ground.  In the ensuing media coverage, comparisons with John Paul Jones, a demand for the House Un American Activities Committee to investigate, and a comparison to the totalitarianism of the USSR and Germany were published. Investigations were launched by the American Legion and the New York State Grange into the incident, and then the State Education Department’s response. Deputy Commissioner Jeru, interviewed by the Post Journal, was rather harsh, and described the residents of Kiantone as self-serving, and neglectful of their children’s future.[28] Commissioner of Education Franscis Trow Spaulding, in speeches, referenced troublemakers in rural areas, who did not see the bigger picture of centralization and the need to create more and better training opportunities[29]. Mrs. Potter, of the area, an Albany Normal School trained librarian, became the spokesperson for the community, and led statewide hearings, rallies, and pressures which resulted in some seismic shifts to state law and policy. First, the Kiantone residents created a private school, and the State Appeals court in Buffalo ruled that private, non organization sponsored schools were legal. This legalized schools unaffiliated with formal organizations, such as religious groups to operate. Second the process was altered (after Morganville) so that a majority of voters in the individual, in existence schools were needed to authorize the centralization or consolidation. This home rule precedent was crucial in the slowing down of enabling consolidations.[30]

The story does not end here, as many districts in the Northern Appalachian Region area of New York have experienced this pressure to reorganize, centralize, or consolidate. In every county, districts have faced pressure to examine consolidation. The ongoing drumbeat of efficiency, and effectiveness from the State policy and political leadership is often matched by local and regional media opinions that “bigger is better.” Yet in large urban districts, “smaller is successful” has been supported by politicians, philanthropists, and others. Why this dissonance? As Fulkerson & Thomas have pointed out, the schema of many policy makers supposes that urban is normal, cities are the way, and rural isn’t worth support or investment.

            These two examples of school district reorganization, whose stories exist in local archives, which to this point, have not been extensively researched, help fill a research gap into the rural rage and distrust of state officials. The two examples provide a demonstrable dissonance between the words, deeds, and actions of the United States government towards democracy overseas, and the internal state government downplaying local communities concerns that their rights were violated and should be subjected to state level bureaucratic planning. No wonder rural residents in New York view state government promises as fleeting and empty.[31]

            I would, in this short essay, recommend that scholars, students, and the curious examine these smaller, more local archives as sources of interesting, compelling, and frankly subaltern histories that do not mirror the narrative which explains the creation of our now taken for granted local governing structures.

References

Primary Archives:

Fenton Historical Society of Chautauqua County. Kiantone history files. Jamestown, NY

Genesee County historical society. Local history files. Batavia, NY.

New York State Archives.  Education Department Bureau of School District Organization. File B0477. Albany, NY.

Secondary sources:

Biddle, Catharine, and Amy Price Azano. “Constructing and reconstructing the “rural school problem” a century of rural education research.” Review of Research in Education 40, no. 1 (2016): 298-325.

Chiles, Robert. “SCHOOL REFORM AS PROGRESSIVE STATECRAFT: EDUCATION POLICY IN NEW YORK UNDER GOVERNOR ALFRED E. SMITH, 1919–1928.” The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 15, no. 4 (2016): 379-398.

Fulkerson, G. & A. Thomas. Urban normativity. Lexington, 2019.

Heffernan, Karen M. ““Much more chewing”: a case study of resistance to school reform in rural New York during the early twentieth century.” Paedagogica Historica (2021): 1-19.

Jakubowski, C. Rural school consolidation: A case study. Unpublished seminar paper, SUNY Binghamton, 2004.

Jakubowski, C. Hidden Resistance. Unpublished PhD Dissertation, SUNY Albany, 2019.

Jakubowski, C. School Consolidation. New York State Archives Magazine 20.1, 2020.

Jakubowski, C. A Cog in the Machine.  Alexandra, VA: Edumatch, 2021.

Jakubowski, C. Rural Education History: State Policy Meets Local Implementation.Lexington, 2023.

Jakubowski, C. Schooling for a Fight. Lexington Press (expected publication 2025).

Justice, Benjamin. The war that wasn’t: Religious conflict and compromise in the common schools of New York state, 1865-1900. SUNY Press, 2009.

Kammen, Carol. On doing local history. Rowman & Littlefield, 2014.

Kammen, Michael. Mystic chords of memory: The transformation of tradition in American culture. Vintage, 2011.

Kyvig, D. et al.  Nearby History: Exploring the Past Around You, 4th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2019.

Loveland, Fred Gerald. Victor M. Rice and Andrew S. Draper: the origins of educational centralization in rural New York State. State University of New York at Buffalo, 1993.

Mauhs-Pugh, Thomas J. “12,000 Little Republics: Civic Apprenticeship and the Cult of Efficiency.” New York History 86, no. 3 (2005): 251-287.

New York State. Master Plan for School District Reorganization. Albany, 1947

New York State. Master Plan for School Districts Reorganization. Second Ed. Albany, 1958.

Osterud, Nancy Grey. Putting the Barn Before the House. Cornell University Press, 2012.

Parkerson, Donald, and Jo Ann Parkerson. Assessment, bureaucracy, and consolidation: The issues facing schools today. Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.

Spaulding, Francis Trow. Addresses and Papers of Francis Trow Spaulding ,President of the University of the State of New York and Commissioner of Education from July 1, 1946-March 25, 1950. University of the State of New York, State Education Department, 1967.

Steffes, Tracy L. “Solving the “rural school problem”: New state aid, standards, and supervision of local schools, 1900–1933.” History of Education Quarterly 48, no. 2 (2008): 181-220.

[1] Jakubowski, 2004 (SUNY Binghamton, History Department Masters presentations).

[2] NYSED, 1958

[3] Fulkerson & Thomas, 2019

[4] Jakubowski, 2019

[5] Initial findings  presented at multiple Researching New York Conference and Jakubowski (2025)

[6] Steffes, 2008

[7] Mauhs-Pugh, 2005

[8] Justice, 2009

[9] Heffernan, 2021

[10] Chiles, 2016

[11] Loveland, 1993

[12] Parkerson & Parkerson, 2015, Azano & Biddle, 2016.

[13] Kammen, 2011

[14] Osterude, 2011

[15] Jakubowski, 2021

[16] Kammen, 2014; Kyvig, et al, 2021.

[17] NYSED, 1958

[18] Genesee County historical society, Batavia, NY. Local history files. NYS Archives, Bureau of District Reorganization files.

[19] See footnote 18

[20] See note 18

[21] See note 18

[22] See note 18

[23] Fenton Historical Society, Kiantone School Consolidation files, Jamestown, NY.

[24] Reports of the New York State Legislative Commission (Rapp-Coldert Commission, 1941-1945)

[25] New York State Master Plan for School District Reorganization, 1947.

[26] Master Plan, 1947 p. 107 & 122.

[27] Fenton Historical Society, Kiantone File, Newspaper clippings.

[28] See note 27

[29] Spaulding, 1967

[30] See note 27

[31] Jakubowski, 2019

Obsolete but Preferable: The Role of Textbooks in the Modern Social Studies Classroom

Obsolete but Preferable: The Role of Textbooks in the Modern Social Studies Classroom

Mitchell Meyer

Introduction

Despite everything we’ve been led to believe over the past two decades, books have not completely disappeared from our society, nor our schools. Indeed, the world has rapidly moved in the direction of technological reliance at a seemingly infinitely higher rate since it entered the 2020s. This is especially true in educational settings, as teachers have begun to use a vast array of online tools, and many students across the country are more and more completing digital assignments. Yet, with all of this progression, texts themselves have not been completely phased out. No analyzation of the American education system can be generalized for every single school, let alone every single teacher. However, it is clear that the majority are still based on or at least reference some form of text. Still, this begs a question regarding the nature of the role that physical textbooks still play in the modern classroom, especially social studies ones considering so much of said subject is based on text interpretation. Ultimately, it is clear that textbooks generally are no longer the sole basis for classes’ entire curricula but are still used as valuable reference points. In addition, there has been a major shift away from traditional physical textbooks, and a move towards more differentiated options. 

Literature Review

To begin my research, I first looked into suggestions on how textbooks could continue to be useful tools. As my research isn’t catered towards one specific grade level, the article “A Content Analysis of Vocabulary Instruction in Social Studies Textbooks for Grades 4-8″ by Janis Harmon, Wanda Hedrick, and Elizabeth Fox from The Elementary School Journal proved a useful starting point. These authors posit that the real issue with the current usage of textbooks is not the book itself, but the way it is used. The primary alternative method of using textbooks regards vocabulary terms. Specifically, the authors claim that “effective practices for promoting vocabulary development stress the importance of instruction that affects comprehension, not just word knowledge alone” (Harmon, Hedrick, and Fox, 254). Thus, textbooks can’t be used to create simple repetition practices, they have to challenge the students in innovative ways which force them to exercise critical thinking skills about the matter at hand. Therefore, vocabulary terms are one of the most essential parts of a textbook, but there must be a dramatic shift away from how this device is being used at present, and how it has been used in the past.

The second article, and perhaps the most important I read, comes from the Georgia Educational Researcher and was written by two professors from Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, Dr. Amber Reed and Dr. Bailey Brown. Their article “Divergent Representations of Africa: A Qualitative Analysis of Georgia Social Studies Textbooks” explores the complexities of textbook usage in the deep American South, and how inherent biases towards various cultures is manifested in their content. In their research of Georgia’s public schools, they found that these issues are systemic and institutionalized. As such, they claim that “research also finds that educators are often ill-prepared to teach global perspectives in the social studies curriculum and that teachers’ biases and Eurocentric framework for teaching material can reproduce misconceptions about other countries” (Brown and Reed, 26). Thus, the biased nature of textbooks, at least in Georgia, is almost guaranteed for renewal as such misconceptions are carried down from one generation to the next. Therefore, there is likely little malicious intent in textbook bias, but failing to recognize it plays into the Eurocentric attitude that the American education system has long subscribed to. As such, this article doesn’t necessarily argue for doing away with textbooks altogether, but it does explain the need for a serious overhaul of the “traditional” methods they inspire.

The final article I referenced comes from the Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. Written by Professors Sarah Matthew and Craig McGill, “Honestly, I Had a Very Strong Reaction to This Reading” contrasts to the aforementioned pieces by actually arguing in favor of moving away from traditional textbooks. They explore what the term “graphic” means in a literary context and how it can often be misconstrued. On the one hand, it can immediately act as a scare tactic many use to support banning certain titles as it assumes such content is either violent or pornographic. But in reality, “graphic” doesn’t have to imply any extreme at all, and at its most basic level just refers to the use of imagery or illustrations (Matthew and McGill, 433). As such, Matthew and McGill heavily advocate for the increased use of graphic novels as alternatives for traditional textbooks, arguing that they can bring a new perspective and encourage certain critical thinking skills not found otherwise. Not only that, but they also advocate for teaching banned material itself, in order to show students why titles are challenged, and what implications doing so holds. 

Methodology

After doing my preliminary research into contemporary attitudes towards continuing textbook usage, I developed a two-pronged approach for my own research into this topic. The first prong involved transferring my findings from the articles I found into questions for three teachers I interviewed. While only three teachers’ opinions can be difficult to form conclusions upon, they are from different parts of New Jersey, and all teach at different levels. One teaches ninth and eleventh grade social studies at Ewing High School. Another teaches sixth grade ancient civilizations at Community Middle School in West Windsor. The final teaches sixth grade social studies at West Brook Middle School in Paramus. They were each asked the same five questions, three of which pertain to the above articles, and I have decided to retain their names in order to further encourage honesty in their answers. Moreover, they were not shown the data collected or previous teachers’ answers until after the interview was completed thereby ensuring autonomy in their responses. The five questions I asked these teachers were: overall, what do you believe the role of textbooks should be in the contemporary classroom; what kind of textbooks do you use, if any at all; do you believe textbook vocabulary terms can be beneficial if taught the right way; have you found that textbooks are generally more biased or unbiased; and how do you feel about teaching banned books, is it important that students are exposed to such material?

In contrast, the second prong focused on the student perspective. For this part of my research, I created a survey which I used to sample students in the class of the aforementioned teacher from Community Middle School. I was also able to obtain some responses from outside West Windsor from other students I work with, particularly in Byram and Stanhope in Sussex County. However, about 90% of the responses came from Community. As such, again I approached drawing blanket conclusions from this data with caution, but it still provides valuable insight into the direction at least this type of school is moving in. For the students I also asked five questions, inquiring about what type of texts are most appealing to them, which types they have used before, which types they believe would be most beneficial for them going forward, how positive an impact they believe textbooks have been on their education so far, and how strongly they believe textbooks can still play a positive role going forward.

The Results

Surprisingly to me, and with few exceptions, each teacher shared very similar answers to the five questions. The consensus seemed to be that textbooks should only act as complementary material to otherwise well-constructed lessons. Furthermore, you needn’t actively seek out textbooks for the niche purposes of vocabulary terms or just for the sake of teaching banned material. This can be done more organically, which is more beneficial to the fluidity of the unit at large. And textbooks, at least those in use in New Jersey, generally try to present information in unbiased ways, but as with any written material, biases do poke through. Hence why it is again important to not rely upon textbooks, or any one source for that matter, so heavily. Put most straightforwardly, the teachers I interviewed were in general agreement that textbooks can’t be the basis of an entire class but can still serve as one of many important resources for instruction or reference.

Similarly, the data I received from the students was not what I was expecting. In terms of what they found most appealing, graphic novels took about 1/3 of the responses. However, traditional textbooks achieved nearly the same number. Unsurprisingly, traditional textbooks were overwhelmingly the most used type of text, but eBooks fell not far behind, and graphic novels again took about 1/3 of the responses. Most surprising of all, traditional textbooks took the plurality of the responses for what type of text students believed would be most beneficial for them going forward, receiving about 40%. And finally, most of the responses for the final two questions fell somewhere in the middle, with zero responses indicating that they strongly disagreed, and 15% indicating that they strongly agreed. 

Conclusion

            The twenty-first century so far has seen a dramatic increase in reliance on technology and advancements in this field. And yet despite the seemingly resulting trend that physical textbooks have become obsolete, they can still play a role in the modern classroom. In completing my research, I have found that few have argued that such resources should be done away with entirely. In fact, many authors who have written on this subject have simply made suggestions for alternative practices. In addition, the teachers I spoke to were also generally supportive of continuing usage of textbooks so long as they do not dominate an entire class. Even students, who in general as an entire demographic have long been stereotyped as vehemently anti-textbook, seem not only willing, but happy to continue learning from them going forward. Again, it is important to acknowledge the small sample sizes used to conduct this study, and further research would have to be completed in order to make any type of generalization. But the general conclusion I draw from this project is that not only can textbooks still play a role in the modern classroom, but they must continue to be a commonly used resource.

 Implications

The data I received both from the teacher interviews and the student surveys somewhat contradicted the information I found in the articles. First and foremost, it seems that the educators I talked to have few issues with the systematic bias in textbooks. They don’t negate its existence; rather they just see them as any other type of text which has to be approached with caution. They see the bias actually as useful, because any source is going to include it. Thus, it can be beneficial to have their students look for biases and point them out when they find them. The implication of their lack of hesitation in this regard seems to be that the era of fully textbook-based classes is just about over. A simple reliance on one textbook dooms students to a narrow view of the world, especially in social studies settings. Moreover, running your class as such is a dangerous reversal of the current trend which aims to facilitate critical thinking, rather than simple content knowledge.

Furthermore, continued textbook usage is completely acceptable, but it has to be supplemented with abundant material from other sources. And not only do students see continued textbook usage as necessary, but many even see traditional textbooks as having played a significant and even positive role in their education. Thus, while it is important to supplement traditional textbooks with other material, it seems we cannot be so extreme as to throw them out entirely. They serve as a familiar source of knowledge which many might feel lost without. So, to answer the initial question this research was based off of, textbooks can absolutely play an important and expansive role in the modern classroom. We just have to ensure that they are being used the right way and are not the only type of source students are exposed to. 

References

Brown, Bailey, and Reed, Amber. 2023. “Divergent Representations of Africa: A Qualitative Analysis of Georgia Social Studies Textbooks.” Georgia Educational Researcher 20 (2): 26–44. doi:10.20429/ger.2023.200202.  

Harmon, Janis M., Wanda B. Hedrick, and Elizabeth A. Fox. “A Content Analysis of Vocabulary Instruction in Social Studies Textbooks for Grades 4-8.” The Elementary School Journal 100, no. 3 (2000): 253–71. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1002154.

Mathews, Sarah A., and Craig M. McGill. 2022. “‘Honestly, I Had a Very Strong Reaction to This Reading’: Social Studies Pre‐Service Teachers’ Application of Literacy Frameworks While Engaging with a Graphic Textbook.” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 65 (5): 431–39. doi:10.1002/jaal.1224.

Fairness Counts: Integrating Math and Social Studies in the Elementary Classroom

Fairness Counts: Integrating Math and Social Studies in the Elementary Classroom

Marilyn M. DePietto

“That’s not fair!” Any teacher who has spent time in elementary school classrooms knows the frequency and passion with which this sentence is declared each day.  As early as 3 years of age, children have a developed sense of fairness that concerns not only allocation of materials, but also the distribution process (Englemann & Tomasello, 2019). This desire to regulate games, play, and sharing of resources in early childhood continues to develop through the elementary years, and it provides a remarkable opportunity for teachers to leverage the integration of mathematics and social studies.

Social studies standards in New York explicitly refer to “gathering, interpreting, and using evidence” and “chronological reasoning and causation” (New York State Education Department [NYSED], 2017a).  The Next Generation Standards for Mathematical Practice include “Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others” and “Look for and make use of structure,” which refers to finding patterns over the course of time (NYSED, 2017b). The overlap between these two subjects, particularly in the early grades, is significant and useful in settling disputes of tangible fairness and in the upper elementary grades, in providing support for students to think about more abstract concepts of fairness and equity.

Math and social studies integration for early childhood (PK-2)

Most early childhood classrooms have objects that are in short supply and coveted by many children at once.  Common ones might include the “good” bean bag chair for reading, the block corner, or the newest art supplies. Some teachers generate and implement systems for managing these situations so that students are treated fairly. Other teachers might feel that students ought to learn that sometimes they can’t get what they want and adopt mantras similar to “you get what you get, and you don’t get upset.”

Both teacher-imposed systems of fairness and teacher-imposed systems of control miss a crucial opportunity to allow students ownership of their class rules and also an opportunity to show how social studies and mathematics are integrated and relevant. Consider the example of the bean bag chair that, for some reason undiscernible to adults, students have decided is the “best” one. In the reading corner, despite the fact that there are four seemingly equivalent places to sit, one chair always causes an argument or a dash across the room to get there first. It is important for teachers to know that even if it seems not to make sense, children assign tremendous value to objects. In fact, studies have shown that even very young children view objects as extensions of self (Diesendruck & Perez, 2015). Leveraging this assigned significance into learning opportunities should be at the forefront of teacher’s agendas.

An interdisciplinary solution to the bean bag chair problem might begin by first naming the issue and helping children articulate their feelings and questions about it. Then, the teacher might set up a democratic process for students to share what they think are good solutions. There are many literary resources that would be good starting points for student participation. Fair Shares by Pippa Goodheart, Share and Take Turns by Cheri J. Meiners, and Friends Ask First by Alexandra Cassel are a few popular choices to anchor a discussion.

Once all students have had an opportunity to ask questions and share their ideas for a fair system, the teacher might consolidate all of the ideas into two or three options. It is important to explicitly model thinking critically about ideas of fairness for students to help them broaden their understanding and expose them to different points of view (Bjervås, 2017).  Ideas elicited from early childhood students would likely come under a few different categories: 1) some kind of system where everyone gets the same amount of time 2) a taking turns system, where if someone else wants a turn, the person in the chair has to give it up 3) a Darwinian system that indicates something to the effect of whoever gets there first gets the chair, and 4) other less fair, or more difficult to articulate systems. Through questioning and debate facilitated by the teacher, students would likely come to the conclusion that the time system is fairest.  In PK-2 classrooms, setting up a ballot measure and having students vote would be a clear way of establishing an example of the democratic process.  Age-appropriate social studies concepts met during this process include gathering, interpreting and using evidence, chronological reasoning and causation, and civic participation (NYSED, 2017a).

After everyone has participated in this form of civic engagement, mathematics plays a larger part.  The very process of counting and representing the results of voting is a mathematical concept.  Using a Unifix cube or a similar concrete manipulative to represent each vote, students can stack them to construct a three-dimensional bar graph showing how many votes were cast for each option. This visual and tactile representation of the votes will make it clear to students the option with which more students agree. This representation itself ticks several boxes for mathematical standards and concepts appropriate for PK-2 classrooms. 

Counting objects, sorting them into categories, arranging them in a line to assign ordinal numbers, comparing the quantity in each group by using words like more than or fewer, and representing data in a display and reading said display are all mathematics concepts that students should learn in early childhood grades (NYSED, 2017b). Research has long since established that students not only retain mathematics content more effectively but are also better able to transfer and apply skills they learned through the context of their own social and cultural values rather than word problems with “real world” situations involving carts full of watermelons from a textbook (Boaler, 1993; Lazic & Maričić, 2021; Taylor, 1989). Establishing classroom rules that are fair for everyone is a high priority for young students, and therefore the mathematics and social studies concepts associated with the construction of such a classroom will likely be learned deeply and effectively.

The idea of “fairness” holds within it the essence of “equality,” which is a mathematics concept that is tremendously important but often misunderstood, particularly in early childhood (Sophian, 2022). Furthermore, concepts of equal parts of a whole, equal groups of objects, and showing equal quantities in different ways are found throughout PK-2 math standards (NYSED, 2017b). To keep with the time in the bean bag chair example, this activity can be further developed by facilitating a discussion among students about how much time in the bean bag chair is fair.  If independent reading time is 20 minutes, and there are 20 students in the class, one option that can be shown using concrete or digital manipulatives is for each student to get 1 minute per day in the chair. Most young children have not yet developed understanding of lengths of time, and understanding the duration of a minute is an important concept taught in the early grades.

Discussion and practical testing of this idea might lead students to the realization that a single minute is not enough time for quality reading and relaxing.  Therefore, through discussion and some experimentation with manipulatives representing minutes, the teacher might suggest that only fewer people per day get to sit in the chair, but for a longer time, and ask students to try to come up with a system for keeping track of students and times. 

Including this amount of thinking and discussion about the bean bag chair will likely result in taking several days to create and revise the plan.  The time invested in having students involved with and responsible for making a fair system is easily justified by the lessons and concepts they will learn about mathematics, social studies, literacy, and collaboration. An additional benefit to facilitating a series of lessons like these is the reduction of students wondering “why do we need to know this?” The meaning behind the instruction is already implicit: students will develop the skills and capacity to eliminate fighting over the bean bag chair.

Math and social studies integration for upper elementary (3-6)

As students mature throughout elementary school activities and lessons like the one above might become less relevant; students become more capable of regulating fairness in social situations without adult intervention.  Additionally, items like the bean bag chair or favorite toys might become less significant in upper elementary classrooms.  However, there still exist many opportunities for students to integrate mathematics and social studies concepts to gain a better understanding of fairness in the world.

Gathering and examining evidence, constructing arguments, and critiquing the reasoning of others are skills that both mathematics and social studies standards mention explicitly (NYSED, 2107a, b). Common examples of how to integrate mathematics and social studies include examining percentages, reading and interpreting graphs and charts, and analyzing change over time. One facet that may not be traditionally examined thorough the lens of both mathematics and social studies is a calculation of the amount of voting power that citizens have in an indirect democracy. 

While younger students are quick to point out “that’s not fair!” when tangible resources are inequitably distributed, older students should be encouraged to think critically about the fairness and equity in more abstract terms by systems of which they are a part (Lee et al., 2021). Elementary school students begin learning the structure of the United States government and have some understanding of what government representatives do. They are also beginning to develop understanding of fractions, extremely large and small numbers, and operations with these numbers. These sets of concepts can be integrated to give students real world understanding of the amount of power their votes have by exploring representative democracy.

This activity focuses on U.S. Senate representation. If students are unfamiliar with representative democracy, a teacher might want to demonstrate using a concrete example with students in the class:  If students in a class of 20 are seated 5 to a table, for example, an election for table representative can be held. Students should understand that these representatives will, with the direction of the teacher, help make some of the rules for the classroom and advocate on behalf of their constituents (tablemates). Therefore, they have to think carefully about who they want to represent them. In this example, there are 4 student representatives who will be part of the discussion and vote on rules.  Each of these student representatives, therefore, has of the total voting power in any matter on which they vote. 

The next question is, how much voting power does each person at the table have? By facilitating discussion, the teacher should be able to elicit that each student has  of the voting power, since everyone was able to vote for their own representative.  This can be found two ways; the first one indicated below is the most straightforward, while the second might be less obvious. Nevertheless, students might notice and articulate this strategy if they are given the chance to explore it. This is also the skill students will need to find answers to questions later in this activity.

  • Each student is 1 out of the total 20 in the class, therefore each vote is  of the total.
  • Each table gets  of the vote via their representative.  That  of the vote comprises 5 students, so each student gets  of that .  Students can draw a model of fourths, then divide each of those fourths into 5 sections (Figure 1) to show that every smaller section is then .  Some students might realize that  of  also means , which is also the same as .

Figure 1

The reasoning in the second explanation can be further explored by changing some conditions about the representatives. For example, what if there were still 4 tables, each with 1 representative, but one table had 8 people, and the rest had 4? Would everyone still have the same voting power? The table of 8 would have  of the voting power each.  While the tables of 4 would have  of the voting power each. There are several mathematical questions that can be asked at this point to facilitate exploration with fractions:

  • Who has more voting power? How do you know?
  • Is that fair? Which table would you want to sit at?
  • What does the size of the denominator tell us about the size of the fraction?

This activity can be extended over the course of several days to expand students’ understanding of voting power on a larger scale. They can be asked to find reliable sources of information indicating the population of each state in the U.S. and to calculate the voting power of the citizens of each state in the U.S senate if each state is represented by two senators. These calculations would involve operations with very large numbers, and comparing unit fractions that represent extremely small quantities, both of which are included in upper elementary mathematics standards (NYSED, 2017a). Students might be surprised to learn that in terms of senate votes, U.S. citizens have drastically different voting power. Extension questions might include:

  • Citizens of which state have the most voting power in the senate? The least?
  • How many times as powerful are the votes from the state with the most power per citizen compared with the state with the least?
  • Is this the case in all branches of government? Should it be? How does representation in the other branches work?

Conclusion

Both the activity described for PK-2 students and the one described for upper elementary students integrate mathematics and social studies in an age-appropriate, real-world context. Social studies and mathematics are not always considered easy to integrate smoothly, but many concepts and skills are clearly interdisciplinary between these two subjects. While meeting content standards is important to ensure equity of mathematics and social studies knowledge among students, it is even more important to give students the tools to think critically, advocate for themselves, and engage in civil discourse (Lee, et al. 2021). These skills ought to be taught through relevant applications that demonstrate to students why it is important to have them. For this reason, leveraging students’ deeply developed feelings that some things are unfair (Engelmann & Tomasello, 2019) into motivating lessons about how to quantify fairness and equity is a powerful bit of pedagogy.

References

Boaler, J. (1993). The Role of Contexts in the Mathematics Classroom: Do they Make Mathematics More” Real”? For the learning of mathematics, 13(2), 12-17. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40248079

Bjervås, L. L. (2017). Teaching about fairness in a preschool context. In Values in Early Childhood Education (pp. 55-69). Routledge.

Diesendruck, G., & Perez, R. (2015). Toys are me: Children’s extension of self to objects. Cognition, 134, 11-20. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2014.09.010

Engelmann, J. M., & Tomasello, M. (2019). Children’s sense of fairness as equal respect. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 23(6), 454-463. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2019.03.001

Lazic, B., Knežević, J., & Maričić, S. (2021). The influence of project-based learning on student achievement in elementary mathematics education. South African Journal of Education, 41(3). http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.hofstra.edu/10.15700/saje.v41n3a1909

Lee, C. D., White, G., & Dong, D. (2021). Educating for Civic Reasoning and Discourse. National Academy of Education. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED611951.pdf

New York State Education Department. (2017a). New York State K-8 social studies framework.https://www.nysed.gov/sites/default/files/programs/standards-instruction/ss-framework-k-8a2.pdf

New York State Education Department. (2017b). New York state p-12 learning standards for mathematics. http://www.nysed.gov/new-york-state-revised-mathematics-learning-standards

Sophian, C. (2022). A developmental perspective on children’s counting. The development of mathematical skills (pp. 26-46). Psychology Press.

Taylor, N. (1989). Let them eat cake: desire, cognition and culture in mathematics learning. Mathematics for All, 161-163.

Book Review: Human Geography: A Concise Introduction

Human Geography: A Concise Introduction, by Mark Boyle.  Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. 2015, paper, 318 pages.

By Thomas Hansen, Ph.D.

This is a very interesting book because it is not from mainstream sources and is not a traditional format text.

This is a textbook meant for college and university courses within the United Kingdom, but the book can be used as a textbook anywhere, good background reading, and interesting data for writing social studies units and lessons in K-12 classrooms.  Meant for a semester-long course, the book includes major points in history to illustrate what human geography is.

As in most of my reviews, I try not to give away all of the content and key ideas in the review.  I talk more in this particular review about the overall approach of the book, some interesting features and themes, my personal reaction, and some possible uses for the book.  I begin here by discussing how the book’s author sets up the discussion.

The author uses a historical approach in discussing human geography and this is mirrored in the way the book is organized—from the beginnings of civilization and the notion of what geography is.  The vocabulary and basic concepts of the subject are presented in the first chapter.  

There are 12 chapters, including a wide range of watershed events, natural disasters, migration, changing economies, and our current understanding of geography.  Each chapter begins with a table of contents and a list of learning objectives.  Each chapter ends with a conclusion of the most important points made, a bank of three essay questions, and references for further reading of what was found in the chapter.  The format of the chapters could be helpful for students seeking lots of clarity in their reading. 

One thing that really stands out in the book is the use of the “zoom-in boxes.”  These are similar to sidebars, but they take up sometimes a full page or more than one page of text, stories and examples related to whatever the information is they interrupt.  The problem is, there are so very many of them that they are aggravating.  Right in the middle of a section on a given topic or subtopic, there is some discussion of how something is an example of X.  When faced with these,

I did not know if I should stop reading the chapter and read the zoom-in box instead, or read for a while and come back to it.

The zoom-in box phenomenon was a very strange aspect of the book for me.  Perhaps this sort of zoom-in box is a tradition in some fields, or in some lands, but it was something I did not ever get used to.  I did not know how to incorporate them into the flow of what I was reading.  Maybe the use of the zoom-in box is aimed at readers with short attention spans?

Another noticeable aspect of the book for me was the persistent theme of the West having imposed its will so strongly worldwide that this has resulted in a strong and pervasive clash of cultures noticeable around the globe (e.g., p. 99).  This sentiment appears throughout the book and is also spelled out at several points.  Readers will see it early on, and they will draw their own conclusions from it.

In responding to this text, I must admit I enjoyed very much the topics and discussion of the different themes and components of what makes geography work.  Aside from the strange tone of the book, and the zoom-in boxes, I got a great deal out of reviewing this topic—one I have always felt is greatly slighted in schools. 

I remember in my own case studying geography in elementary school—we had a book on it one year!  In high school, I took a course on physical geography—in addition to taking French, German and Spanish language courses.  A survey course on cultural geography was one of the very first electives I took in college.  I went on to study several other world languages in college. 

Of course, in studying about other languages and cultures, a knowledge of geography is essential.  Therefore, I do not need to be convinced it is an important topic for study.   

I would recommend the book to give teachers of social studies, world languages, and other subjects a different perspective and a way to connect history and geography.  It is always interesting to me to see how books are laid out in other countries and learn from different points of view.  This is good material for a teacher’s professional library, and the book can also be used to help inform and design units for the classroom. 

Because the book is too long for a short professional development session, it fits more in the category of resource and reference material for teachers of cultural and world-focused subjects. 

Human Geography: A Concise Introduction, by Mark Boyle.  Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. 2015, paper, 318 pages.

By Thomas Hansen, Ph.D.

This is a very interesting book because it is not from mainstream sources and is not a traditional format text.

This is a textbook meant for college and university courses within the United Kingdom, but the book can be used as a textbook anywhere, good background reading, and interesting data for writing social studies units and lessons in K-12 classrooms.  Meant for a semester-long course, the book includes major points in history to illustrate what human geography is.

As in most of my reviews, I try not to give away all of the content and key ideas in the review.  I talk more in this particular review about the overall approach of the book, some interesting features and themes, my personal reaction, and some possible uses for the book.  I begin here by discussing how the book’s author sets up the discussion.

The author uses a historical approach in discussing human geography and this is mirrored in the way the book is organized—from the beginnings of civilization and the notion of what geography is.  The vocabulary and basic concepts of the subject are presented in the first chapter.  

There are 12 chapters, including a wide range of watershed events, natural disasters, migration, changing economies, and our current understanding of geography.  Each chapter begins with a table of contents and a list of learning objectives.  Each chapter ends with a conclusion of the most important points made, a bank of three essay questions, and references for further reading of what was found in the chapter.  The format of the chapters could be helpful for students seeking lots of clarity in their reading. 

One thing that really stands out in the book is the use of the “zoom-in boxes.”  These are similar to sidebars, but they take up sometimes a full page or more than one page of text, stories and examples related to whatever the information is they interrupt.  The problem is, there are so very many of them that they are aggravating.  Right in the middle of a section on a given topic or subtopic, there is some discussion of how something is an example of X.  When faced with these,

I did not know if I should stop reading the chapter and read the zoom-in box instead, or read for a while and come back to it.

The zoom-in box phenomenon was a very strange aspect of the book for me.  Perhaps this sort of zoom-in box is a tradition in some fields, or in some lands, but it was something I did not ever get used to.  I did not know how to incorporate them into the flow of what I was reading.  Maybe the use of the zoom-in box is aimed at readers with short attention spans?

Another noticeable aspect of the book for me was the persistent theme of the West having imposed its will so strongly worldwide that this has resulted in a strong and pervasive clash of cultures noticeable around the globe (e.g., p. 99).  This sentiment appears throughout the book and is also spelled out at several points.  Readers will see it early on, and they will draw their own conclusions from it.

In responding to this text, I must admit I enjoyed very much the topics and discussion of the different themes and components of what makes geography work.  Aside from the strange tone of the book, and the zoom-in boxes, I got a great deal out of reviewing this topic—one I have always felt is greatly slighted in schools. 

I remember in my own case studying geography in elementary school—we had a book on it one year!  In high school, I took a course on physical geography—in addition to taking French, German and Spanish language courses.  A survey course on cultural geography was one of the very first electives I took in college.  I went on to study several other world languages in college. 

Of course, in studying about other languages and cultures, a knowledge of geography is essential.  Therefore, I do not need to be convinced it is an important topic for study.   

I would recommend the book to give teachers of social studies, world languages, and other subjects a different perspective and a way to connect history and geography.  It is always interesting to me to see how books are laid out in other countries and learn from different points of view.  This is good material for a teacher’s professional library, and the book can also be used to help inform and design units for the classroom. 

Because the book is too long for a short professional development session, it fits more in the category of resource and reference material for teachers of cultural and world-focused subjects. 

Human Geography: A Concise Introduction, by Mark Boyle.  Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. 2015, paper, 318 pages.

By Thomas Hansen, Ph.D.

This is a very interesting book because it is not from mainstream sources and is not a traditional format text.

This is a textbook meant for college and university courses within the United Kingdom, but the book can be used as a textbook anywhere, good background reading, and interesting data for writing social studies units and lessons in K-12 classrooms.  Meant for a semester-long course, the book includes major points in history to illustrate what human geography is.

As in most of my reviews, I try not to give away all of the content and key ideas in the review.  I talk more in this particular review about the overall approach of the book, some interesting features and themes, my personal reaction, and some possible uses for the book.  I begin here by discussing how the book’s author sets up the discussion.

The author uses a historical approach in discussing human geography and this is mirrored in the way the book is organized—from the beginnings of civilization and the notion of what geography is.  The vocabulary and basic concepts of the subject are presented in the first chapter.  

There are 12 chapters, including a wide range of watershed events, natural disasters, migration, changing economies, and our current understanding of geography.  Each chapter begins with a table of contents and a list of learning objectives.  Each chapter ends with a conclusion of the most important points made, a bank of three essay questions, and references for further reading of what was found in the chapter.  The format of the chapters could be helpful for students seeking lots of clarity in their reading. 

One thing that really stands out in the book is the use of the “zoom-in boxes.”  These are similar to sidebars, but they take up sometimes a full page or more than one page of text, stories and examples related to whatever the information is they interrupt.  The problem is, there are so very many of them that they are aggravating.  Right in the middle of a section on a given topic or subtopic, there is some discussion of how something is an example of X.  When faced with these,

I did not know if I should stop reading the chapter and read the zoom-in box instead, or read for a while and come back to it.

The zoom-in box phenomenon was a very strange aspect of the book for me.  Perhaps this sort of zoom-in box is a tradition in some fields, or in some lands, but it was something I did not ever get used to.  I did not know how to incorporate them into the flow of what I was reading.  Maybe the use of the zoom-in box is aimed at readers with short attention spans?

Another noticeable aspect of the book for me was the persistent theme of the West having imposed its will so strongly worldwide that this has resulted in a strong and pervasive clash of cultures noticeable around the globe (e.g., p. 99).  This sentiment appears throughout the book and is also spelled out at several points.  Readers will see it early on, and they will draw their own conclusions from it.

In responding to this text, I must admit I enjoyed very much the topics and discussion of the different themes and components of what makes geography work.  Aside from the strange tone of the book, and the zoom-in boxes, I got a great deal out of reviewing this topic—one I have always felt is greatly slighted in schools. 

I remember in my own case studying geography in elementary school—we had a book on it one year!  In high school, I took a course on physical geography—in addition to taking French, German and Spanish language courses.  A survey course on cultural geography was one of the very first electives I took in college.  I went on to study several other world languages in college. 

Of course, in studying about other languages and cultures, a knowledge of geography is essential.  Therefore, I do not need to be convinced it is an important topic for study.   

I would recommend the book to give teachers of social studies, world languages, and other subjects a different perspective and a way to connect history and geography.  It is always interesting to me to see how books are laid out in other countries and learn from different points of view.  This is good material for a teacher’s professional library, and the book can also be used to help inform and design units for the classroom. 

Because the book is too long for a short professional development session, it fits more in the category of resource and reference material for teachers of cultural and world-focused subjects. 

Human Geography: A Concise Introduction, by Mark Boyle.  Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. 2015, paper, 318 pages.

By Thomas Hansen, Ph.D.

This is a very interesting book because it is not from mainstream sources and is not a traditional format text.

This is a textbook meant for college and university courses within the United Kingdom, but the book can be used as a textbook anywhere, good background reading, and interesting data for writing social studies units and lessons in K-12 classrooms.  Meant for a semester-long course, the book includes major points in history to illustrate what human geography is.

As in most of my reviews, I try not to give away all of the content and key ideas in the review.  I talk more in this particular review about the overall approach of the book, some interesting features and themes, my personal reaction, and some possible uses for the book.  I begin here by discussing how the book’s author sets up the discussion.

The author uses a historical approach in discussing human geography and this is mirrored in the way the book is organized—from the beginnings of civilization and the notion of what geography is.  The vocabulary and basic concepts of the subject are presented in the first chapter.  

There are 12 chapters, including a wide range of watershed events, natural disasters, migration, changing economies, and our current understanding of geography.  Each chapter begins with a table of contents and a list of learning objectives.  Each chapter ends with a conclusion of the most important points made, a bank of three essay questions, and references for further reading of what was found in the chapter.  The format of the chapters could be helpful for students seeking lots of clarity in their reading. 

One thing that really stands out in the book is the use of the “zoom-in boxes.”  These are similar to sidebars, but they take up sometimes a full page or more than one page of text, stories and examples related to whatever the information is they interrupt.  The problem is, there are so very many of them that they are aggravating.  Right in the middle of a section on a given topic or subtopic, there is some discussion of how something is an example of X.  When faced with these,

I did not know if I should stop reading the chapter and read the zoom-in box instead, or read for a while and come back to it.

The zoom-in box phenomenon was a very strange aspect of the book for me.  Perhaps this sort of zoom-in box is a tradition in some fields, or in some lands, but it was something I did not ever get used to.  I did not know how to incorporate them into the flow of what I was reading.  Maybe the use of the zoom-in box is aimed at readers with short attention spans?

Another noticeable aspect of the book for me was the persistent theme of the West having imposed its will so strongly worldwide that this has resulted in a strong and pervasive clash of cultures noticeable around the globe (e.g., p. 99).  This sentiment appears throughout the book and is also spelled out at several points.  Readers will see it early on, and they will draw their own conclusions from it.

In responding to this text, I must admit I enjoyed very much the topics and discussion of the different themes and components of what makes geography work.  Aside from the strange tone of the book, and the zoom-in boxes, I got a great deal out of reviewing this topic—one I have always felt is greatly slighted in schools. 

I remember in my own case studying geography in elementary school—we had a book on it one year!  In high school, I took a course on physical geography—in addition to taking French, German and Spanish language courses.  A survey course on cultural geography was one of the very first electives I took in college.  I went on to study several other world languages in college. 

Of course, in studying about other languages and cultures, a knowledge of geography is essential.  Therefore, I do not need to be convinced it is an important topic for study.   

I would recommend the book to give teachers of social studies, world languages, and other subjects a different perspective and a way to connect history and geography.  It is always interesting to me to see how books are laid out in other countries and learn from different points of view.  This is good material for a teacher’s professional library, and the book can also be used to help inform and design units for the classroom. 

Because the book is too long for a short professional development session, it fits more in the category of resource and reference material for teachers of cultural and world-focused subjects.