Reply to The value of instruction books - after we go back to normal, could we have instruction books again?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I don’t understand why people want a textbook when the internet exists. Textbooks waste paper. Just go on Khan Academy or IXL if you want to see what a student needs to learn in a particular grade.[/quote]
Last I checked, Khan Academy -- or IXL, for that matter - doesn't teach social studies. Or science. Or English, in any meaningful way. 
Any recommendations on how to teach history 'from the internet'??[/quote]

Watch documentaries, have your child come up with a research topic and let them read books about that topic, talk about current events and how it relates to government and similar historical events, etc. You don’t need a white-washed textbook to teach history. [/quote]

Actually, one place where I think current history teaching is failing kids is that it is very "episodic."  Today, kids, we're going to look at primary documents about the Scopes Monkey Trial.  Tomorrow, we'll do an activity on the stock market crash.  Well-written textbooks provide an overview of events, and allow kids to put them on a timeline to make sense of them.  Should they go deeper? Absolutely.  But for teachers to be arguing that they aren't necessary is troubling.  Look at any survey of American citizens (or even college students) on history or government and you will see that current methods are failing, no matter how many graphic organizers the kids fill out or primary documents they "analyze" during their formative years.  (That's another thing that gets me; it is necessary to know historical facts before you can "analyze".)[/quote]

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