Peter Wallenstein led a team of scholars to fact check and assist with revision of the Five Ponds Press OUR VIRGINIA textbook that was the source of the initial scandal. I was one of the scholars who participated in that effort, and in responding to the various levels of public review at the conclusion of the revision.
Having now seen the process from the inside, I'd like to offer a few observations:
1. There does not exist any kind of consensus in our society regarding what does and does not constitute essential, core historical knowledge. The older consensus, which viewed study of history as preparation for civic engagement in the present, collapsed in the 1970s (if not earlier) and has not been replaced by anything to which most concerned parties in the conversation can agree.
2. There are serious space concerns in the design of elementary level text books. You have to convey a lot of information, and you have to do it in a very abbreviated amount of space. It rapidly becomes a zero-sum game--to include one thing, you have to remove something else. This necessarily involves value judgments. It also means that responsible criticism of texts for errors of omission mandates indicating what should be removed from the existing text, in order to make room for what you think should be added. Some critics did this; many did not.
3. There are errors of commission in extant, responsibly written Virginia textbooks that cannot responsibly be fixed. This is because all textbooks must by state law accord with the existing Virginia Standards of Learning, and there are errors of commission in the SOLs. Thus, any textbook that will pass the real world test of actually being approved will of necessity contain errors of fact. The only way to fix this is to change the SOLs.
Professor Wallenstein published a useful op-ed in the Virginia Pilot on 11 October of last year, responding to various criticisms of the revised text. You can find that essay via the following link:
http://hamptonroads.com/2011/10/new-edition-our-virginia-serves-our-young-readers-well
All best wishes,
Kevin
___________________________
Kevin R. Hardwick
Associate Professor
Department of History, MSC 8001
James Madison University
Harrisonburg, Virginia 22807
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From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Tarter, Brent (LVA) [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, March 26, 2012 2:14 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: 03232232Z12 Re: Textbooks
Steven Corneliussen is right on the money with his comment. All
historical interpretation and writing involves making choices: of
subject, or writing style, of examples to include and exclude, of
adjectives and adverbs. People who complain about interpretation and
revisionism are usually complaining about an interpretation with which
they don't agree.
With textbooks, in particular, the first objective is to be factually
accurate, and the second then would be to present the past in a
thoughtful way that engages the pupils in learning the essential
information and also in learning how to think about the complex issues
that the past (and also the present) present to us.
What we had in 2010 was a fourth-grade history book that was full of
factually inaccurate material. That was the number one problem there.
Brent Tarter
The Library of Virginia
[log in to unmask]
Please visit the Library of Virginia's Web site at
http://www.lva.virginia.gov
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