SO LITTLE FOR THE MIND:

Textbook Jungle: Today's history books aren't just politically correct. They're boring.
(WSJ.online, 09/04/04)

Remember that classroom scene in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" where a monotone Ben Stein plays a teacher boring his class half to death? If two recent studies are any clue, the boredom Mr. Stein inflicted on the silver screen is now the reality in all too many history classrooms across America.

In this case, however, the blame is going to the texts and not the teachers. For "A Consumer's Guide to High School History Textbooks," the Thomas B. Fordham Institute (www.edexcellence.net) commissioned assorted historians and teachers to review six popular texts in American history and an equal number in world history. As its title suggests, "World History Textbooks: A Review" (www.historytextbooks.org)--undertaken by the American Textbook Council (ATC)--is also a review of several texts, although it is narrower in scope and more unified in its editorial voice.

Whatever their differences, the two studies reach the same conclusion: Bad history makes for tedious textbooks.

Take Prentice Hall's "World History: Connections to Today." Though one of the most popular high-school texts in America, this book received low marks from both studies. One Fordham reviewer criticized the book for its attempts to "redress prior imbalances in civilizational coverage by at times inflating or elevating one culture or civilization's achievements at the expense of European or Western accomplishments." For example, Columbus's voyage to the New World is attributed not to European advances but to contributions from "Muslim astronomers and navigators."

The problem is not just incipient political correctness and questions of balance. As the ATC review notes, these texts also elevate lush photos and handsome graphics over a coherent story line. And the "exercises" that students are asked to do can be more deadening than the words they are asked to read. Is any 10th-grader really equipped to answer the larger questions--whether war is ever justified, whether diversity strengthens or weakens a society, what limits there should be on freedom of speech--based on the barest exposure to the past?

"Such instructional exercises," the ATC asserts, "do not--as they claim to do--promote genuine critical thinking. They discourage deep reading on the subject and invite facile discussion. They promote classroom sloganeering. They favor the glib student and the showboat teacher."

Anyone with kids knows how bored most of them are by school history and how little they retain. They often can get a fair grade on the sole basis of a rant against racism and sexism. It is all well and good to blame book companies and teachers, but could this have happened without the tacit support of many parents who would rather their children make them proud by regurgitating their prejudices than embarrass them with critical thought?