A teeny bit of textbook history

When I first conceived of this independent study project on the politics of textbooks, it was based out of a desire to learn more about the processes which govern textbook content approval. My curiosity was piqued from various articles I had read over the years discussing various textbook battles being fought in California or Texas, and their disproportionate impact on textbooks in the rest of the nation due to their buying power and the economics of printing presses. In my readings and research, however, I am reminded that ideological battles over how knowledge is disseminated are nothing new. After all, we have:

• Copernicus (1473-1543)
• Galileo (1564-1642)
• Horace Mann reform era (1830s-1840s, when Mann exerted major influence over education reforms. Most notable was the establishment of a common school system whereby public education became available to all children; most controversial was inclusion of religious-based morality teaching. Note that at the time this was controversial not because it included religion in public schools, but because it adopted a non-sectarian approach rather than pick either the Protestant or Catholic side.)
  
• State v. John Scopes (1925 Tennessee court case overturning an anti-evolution state law)
  
• Everson v. Board of Education (1947 Supreme Court case ruling that public school transportation could not be used for Catholic school students)

Of course, there are lots and lots of other pieces of this puzzle--this little list is only meant to be a sampling. The point is that ideological battles over what gets taught have been waged for a long time, and I don't think they'll be ceasing anytime soon. So what, then is, our responsibility to students? I view this through two lenses. On the one hand, as a society and community we seek truth and knowledge. So it seems like incorporating the truths of any given field in a textbook is a no-brainer. But then again, how do we truly build knowledge? It's not by having facts spewed at us and passively ingesting them. We build knowledge through interaction; by taking in information from various sources, analyzing, evaluating, and synthesizing that information into true understanding. Seeking truth and knowledge is not limited to making sure the "right" words are in any given text, but that students are given the skills and opportunity to do the right thing with those words.