Please stand and recite:

I pledge allegiance to the flag

of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands

one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Please listen and

read the following:United States Global Empire

Our United States of America Has quickly become a global empireCome on!See it now for what Power hungry with nothing much to giveAnd violent, all in the name of freedomFreedom is not dominationI believe freedom has got to come from

withinYes it doesAnd without the gunFreedom is the ability to feel love for

everyone

The Empire controls the mediaThe media controls the world

Come on!The media is the empire's mouth

Capitalist propaganda coming outAnd violence, all in the name of

freedomFreedom is not competition

I believe that freedom's got to come from within

Yes it doesNot with the gun

Freedom's the ability to feel love for everyone

• by Mason Jennings

How do these items make you feel?

1. What do you think of reciting the pledge?

2. What do you think of its content?

3. What do you think of listening to United States Global Empire?

4. What do you think of its content?

5. What, of the above experiences, do students get in American schools?

6. What do you think of this curriculum?

Provenzo Chapter 13

Textbooks and the Curriculum

Textbooks and Curriculum• Textbooks: visible evidence of the curriculum in the schools. • Consensus documents: textbooks must meet needs of people with different

values, goals, and purposes—for school and life.

• Curriculum: planned activities designed to implement a particular set educational aims—including what is to be taught and the knowledge, skills and attitudes which are to be deliberately fostered.”

Textbooks and Curriculum• Curriculum is by definition a cultural

document.

• Fostering specific skills and specific ways of constructing and viewing the world.

• Textbooks: working at multiple levels.

• Textbooks contain both overt curriculum and hidden curriculum.

• Implicit curriculum: What types of things do we want to teach students?

Textbooks and the History of Education• 1500’s, Protestant Reformation: Martin Luther introduced illustrated

Bibles and catechisms intended for the use of both children and adults.

• These texts eventually led to the development of the modern textbook.

• John Amos Comenius published the first modern textbook for children, the Orbis sensualium pictus.(1659)

• Commenius described different parts of the head and hands using a numbered illustration.

• One column was in English and another in Latin.

• It is widely considered the most popular textbook in the period preceding the Revolution, first published by Benjamin Harris around 1690.

Textbooks and the History of Education• Throughout history the attitudes and

beliefs at work within society were reflected in the content of textbooks.

• The depiction of racial stereotypes in textbooks reinforced the superiority of Western culture.

• Textbooks conveyed popular religious prejudices too.

• Conflict over the content of textbooks reflected regional as well as national values during the 19th century.

The McGuffey Readers• The most famous textbook series of the 19th century is the McGuffey Eclectic Readers.

• First published in 1836, they dominated the U.S. textbook marked for approximately 75 years.

• Stories about appropriate moral behavior are common—many often taking on political overtones.

• It is clear that current textbooks only appear less biased and value driven because they reflect the culture of which they are a part.

The Textbook Business• Textbooks make up the largest single type of book sold in the U.S. • They account for approximately a quarter of the roughly $6 billion

annual book sales in the U.S. • Most textbooks, especially elementary and secondary textbooks, are

conservative. • Authors and editors often find themselves trying to produce books

that are valuable and useful to all people. **As a result the textbook industry is often accused of

producing bland and uninteresting books that avoid taking specific stands on controversial issues.

State Adoption of Textbooks• Adoption committees in many

states review the selection of textbooks for use in public schools.

• The most important states using these review procedures are California, Texas, and Florida.

• A book that fails to get on the

approved state list can prove a financial disaster.

Assigned reading on Quran incites protests--NEW YORK TIMES: Posted on Tue, Aug. 20, 2002; By Kate

Zernike.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C.

Chapel Hill's 3,500 freshmen gathered on Monday to discuss their summer reading assignment, which this year was a book about the Quran. Just hours before the talks were to begin, a court was still considering an appeal from a conservative Christian group that had sued to stop them. Then at 10 a.m., the federal district judge ruled against the group, clearing the way for the discussions.In the courtroom, lawyers for the university had spent the weekend in court arguing that the discussions were not, as the Christian group charged, "forced Islamic indoctrination."

As the court case was going on, the state Senate in Raleigh was considering a bill, already passed by the House, that would deny funding to the university if it did not give equal time in the classroom to "all known religions."The freshmen streamed into classrooms to begin their discussions to the sound of demonstrations at a nearby rally in support of academic freedom, and shouting from a few stray protesters who argued that students should be required to read the Bible instead.

"The whole idea is that this is the first step toward understanding a culture we don't know anything about, and to get students to ask their own questions," the chancellor said in an interview.

But the Family Policy Network argued that the assignment violated constitutional provisions against state-sponsored religion, and sought out three students to act as plaintiffs. Even on Monday, a lawyer for the group called the judge's decision "a political correctness ruling.""Post-Sept. 11, I think the academic police are falling all over themselves to uphold Islam in favorable light, which is precisely what this program was attempting to do," said Stephen M. Crampton, the chief counsel for the American Family Association's Center for Law and Policy, which argued the case.

The book, "Approaching the Qur'an" by Michael Sells, a professor of religion at Haverford College, caused little outrage when it was assigned in the spring. But the fury built over the summer, fanned by political commentators.In discussions and interviews on Monday, students said the debate had been overblown. Even those who said they were opposed to the assignment said they were happy they had read the book.

"The fact is, we're at a liberal arts school that's supposed to open our minds," said Matthew Neidich, a freshman from Charlotte, N.C. "You're supposed to get new perspective. You don't get new perspective by not trying to learn about new things."

Your reaction to Assigned reading on Quran incites protests :

1. Is this a curriculum controversy?

2. To what extent is this curriculum question political?

3. What is your argument for the assigned reading?

4. What is your argument against the assigned reading?

5. What should be the solution to such an issue?

6. To what extent would your solution work right here at UMD?

Quiz 4 Review, Ch. 111. A reference to the “pink-collar” labor force suggests

2. Which of these sentences is gender neutral?

3. An important women’s rights leader of the nineteenth century was

4. Women exposed the unfairness and inequality of society by working during

5. ____________________________ was important civil rights legislation affecting women.

6. Title IX prohibits discrimination based on

7. According to educational researchers Myra and David Sadker

8. One important study of elementary school readers found that girls are depicted as

9. In a recent federal court case in Utah, teacher Wendy Weaver won the right to

10. Currently, parents can object to their students learning about STDs and AIDS on the basis of

Quiz 4 Review, Ch. 12• 1. The first real work done with a deaf and mute child was

• 2. Changes in attitudes toward special education began in part from

• 3. Congress made major provisions to guarantee and protect the rights of people with disabilities in 1973, particularly with Section 504, of the

• 4. The concept of having a child with a disability in the regular classroom as much as possible is known as

• 5. Assuming that schools reflect the communities of which they are a larger part is the underlying foundation of

• 7. Binet’s test was intended to measure a child’s _______, but was instead used in the United States to measure _________.

• 9. An alternative to the hereditarian based model of intelligence is Howard Gardner’s theory of

• 10. Physical access to educational facilities is required to be accessible to all according to

Quiz 4 Review, Ch. 131. The most visible evidence of the curriculum in the schools is

2. Curriculum is a “set of planned activities which are

4. When stories appear neutral on the surface, but present a specific set of values upon closer examination, they have a

curriculum.

5. The McGuffey Eclectic Readers were

6. U.S. culture in the 1950s could be seen as only white and upper class if viewed solely from the messages in

7. The driving force behind the textbook industry is

8. The largest single type of book sold in the U.S. is

What do you think?

• Provenzo 310

• Examine your textbook(s).

• What significant cultural and social content is included?

• To what extent, if any, does this suggest hidden and null curriculum?

What do you think?• Provenzo 322.

• How you might handle objections from parents over content of what is

taught in class?• Parent, teacher, school

rights?

For discussion:1. Is it really possible for an author to avoid communicating a

political, ideological, or personal point of view when writing a textbook?

2. What is meant by the idea of a textbook being a consensus document?

3. How do textbooks represent a type of cultural capital?4. How does the fact that textbook publishing is a business affect the

content of textbooks?5. Is bias an issue in textbooks?6. Should censorship play a role in editing an selecting textbooks?7. In the United States, who should ultimately be responsible for

determining the content of textbooks and other curricular materials used in the schools?