Principal theme in world history should be universality of basic human experience. This approach values differing forms of human expression without associating abstract concepts (such as faith, reason, or creativity) to one specific period of history in one particular part of the world. Scholarship should remain the highest priority, and past…

Based on recent critiques of Soviet and American textbooks, this article discusses educators' differing assumptions concerning what students should learn, who should decide what they learn, how students learn, how geography and history curriculum should be organized, and how much choice teachers should have. Includes eight references. (MLH)

Because American history and social studies textbooks are "official chronicles of the nation's past and influence the next generation's social understanding, content controversies abound. This article discusses the editorial ahistoricism, arid language, and disembodied figures characterizing most texts, reviews past successful models, and suggests…

Credited with creating a sense of community within a junior high is this project bringing together sixth, seventh, eighth graders for a schoolwide study of the 1940s. Teams composed of staff and students from all grades were assigned subtopics that were explored and shared through a variety of activities. (MJL)

This article presents a conversation with James Loewen. Loewen is an author, historian, and professor. In a recent conversation with the author, he shared his views on how American Indian topics and events are traditionally taught and offered his insights into what teachers can do to accommodate multiple perspectives in their examination of…

A high-school English teacher educated his students (military dependents) about the Vietnam War by helping them discover their own parents' role and the war's effects on their lives. After compiling research and interview data, students presented scenes depicting what people brought to the Vietnam War Memorial. (MLH)

Inquiry-based teaching and assessment approaches are superior to standardized tests for measuring students' progress. Historical thinking skills employed in Leopold von Ranke's 19th-century seminars have been refined to consider point of view, credibility of evidence, historical context, causality, and multiple perspectives--benchmarks of…

After a 16-year absence from the public school classroom, an education professor returned for a semester to teach American history to an eleventh-grade class. He recounts four lessons concerning the need for classroom order, student motivation, teacher efficiency, alternative student grouping arrangements, and student feedback about teaching…

The understanding and practice of multicultural education can be enriched by expanding the discourse to include comparative perspectives from around the world. A Virginia teacher educator uses videocases (containing slices of educational life, teaching notes, and a written set of expert interpretations) to help students engage in a series of…

The debate over national history standards is so fixated on "which history" that the importance of studying history is being overlooked. History humanizes us in ways that few other curricular areas can. Three classroom vignettes illustrate the difficulties of achieving mature historical understanding in a Disney/MTV-dominated culture. (53…

Many private schools accepting public and private voucher funding use instructional materials that transmit profoundly conservative values. Content of texts produced by A Beka Books and Bob Jones University Press is virtually identical to materials produced and disseminated by the Christian Right and other conservative groups. (Contains 42…