I’ve been harping on this for some time. As an adjunct professor of humanities, I teach courses in Ancient and Medieval Cultures, The Modern World, (Renaissance to War on Terror) and American History and the Constitution. Unfortunately, as an adjunct I have no influence on the selection of texts. All I can do is try to mitigate some of the damage from the assigned readings. I tell my students up front that their books are primarily social histories, or another form of social studies. We need to get away from social studies in primary and secondary school and go back to teaching history. I am amazed at what an incredible lack of basic American history my students possess when they come into my classroom.....and yes, as my tagline suggests, I openly advocate teaching American Exceptionalism...
Thanks for your comments.
“All I can do is to try to mitigate some of the damage from the assigned readings.” That sounds like depressing work.
On the other hand, there must be a lot of opportunities for cleverness. How does one do this mitigating as quickly as possible?
I think we can all be inspired by what Rush did with his children’s books. He found a way to mitigate at a high level. A time-traveling horse??
Well, whatever works! I wish you great success with it.