History and Bias in the classroom.

When teaching history, a teacher needs to consider and plan for varying points of view and perspectives in his or her classroom. These biases can come from three places: the textbook, the teacher, or the students. It is important for every teacher to emphasize that there is ALWAYS more than one side to any story.

It is pretty much a fact that textbooks in the United States are written from a Western, “pro-america” perspective. But, it is frightening that many teachers still use the textbook for most of the Social Studies instruction in their classroom. In my program we use the phrase “mile wide and an inch deep” when we talk about textbooks because they only cover the surface.

A few months ago, Texas changed their history curriculum standards. It was in the news but I’m not sure if many people really knew why the issue was getting so much attention. The reason is because Texas buys one textbook for every student in its state, and since the textbook industry is for-profit, it means that they write one textbook for Texas and tweak that textbook for other states. The problem with the changes is the fact that the committee was comprised mostly of special interest groups with an agenda to bring a religious tilt to the curriculum. It may sound like I am just pointing fingers and carrying my own bias here, but when you read the proposed changes, its pretty clear what these groups were trying to do. They succeeded in making these changes, like taking Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson out of the spotlight when teachers talk about the Founding Fathers, and instead focusing on clergy members who may have not been as important. It just doesn’t make sense to me.

Teachers also need to be aware of their own biases and prejudices in the classroom. In fact, it is illegal and unethical for teachers to use their position of authority in the classroom to express their own political or religious beliefs. Because of this, teaching history puts teachers in a precarious situation where they have to think carefully about the things they say and the perspectives they personally support in the classroom. The best thing for any teacher to do is to plan ahead and prepare questions that would help the students think about the multiple perspectives.

And then teachers must always remember that their classroom is diverse place, with many differing and possibly conflicting perspectives. The teacher needs to balance respect in the classroom with respect for home cultures. The only way to maintain this balance is to make the classroom a neutral zone where students feel free to express themselves and free to try another idea. In math, we know that there is more than one way to solve a problem, therefore in Social Studies there must be more than one way to look at a problem.