Educational Psychology—Limitations and Possibilities

924 The Praeger Handbook of Education and Psychology
the positivistic process of assimilation whereby they shape an event to fit their cognitive structure,
toward a process in which they restructure their cognition to fit an event. This accommodation
allows them to anticipate different situations and thereby formulate strategies that will produce
emancipatory outcomes as a result of new encounters. Students become explorers of the implicate
order, a deeper structure of reality (Kincheloe, 1999).
HISTORY TEXTBOOKS
It has long been acknowledged that the tools of history teaching should include more than one
textbook. Over a hundred years ago, teachers were entreated to bring multiple sources, primary
and secondary, into the classroom. A century has passed, however, yet the complaint still persists
that teachers rely on too few sources, with the history textbook always at the forefront. The
textbook may have been revised to include different racial, ethnic, gender and other perspectives,
but it remains a cultural artifact, reflective of the era in which it was produced and at the mercy of
the particular ideologies of the publishers and the prescribing jurisdictions. Methods textbooks
for preservice teachers are equally reflective of particular pedagogical trends but most fail to elicit
anything more than a shallow understanding of the notion of historiography and criticality. At
the same time, the public discourse refers sentimentally, and sometimes angrily, to a so-called
golden age of history education that never existed.
In the late nineteenth to early twentieth century, high school history textbooks were hardcover
books no bigger than the size of today’s trade paperbacks. They contained some maps and
illustrations, but for the most part the text was dense, with the density often relieved within chapters
by numbered sections or paragraphs. This textual separation was designed to make the content
material easier for the student reader to grasp. Single male authors who were usually university
professors of history wrote these tomes with an authoritarian voice. In many nineteenth-century
classrooms, textbooks were the antidote to the ill-trained teacher who had no understanding of
history (FitzGerald, 1979). The text often included a message from the author about the nature
of history, and during this era, it was all about progress. “The study of history was the study
of the progress of man [sic] in the Baconian sense, with the pinnacle of achievement explicitly
identified as white European civilization” (Swinton, 1883). Of course, the particular example of
that pinnacle depended on the national origin of the author; in British texts, the British Empire
provided the model with which all others were compared, while American authors preferred
the American touchstone. Primitive societies were described as inferior, and while mentioned,
were dispatched with due haste. In subsequent editions, some authors altered their writing styles
slightly to adhere to the characteristics of a story (Myers, 1906/1921). Textbooks were, and still
are, big business, and authors and publishers then as today regularly made changes to their books
to fit the needs and desires of the committees that approved their use in schools.
As the twentieth century continued, however, history textbooks changed in some significant
ways. They became larger in size and the font size of the text was similarly expanded. Illustrations
and maps became more numerous, photographs and color were added, and chapters were more
likely to be followed by study aids such as questions about content, map-reading activities, and
references for further study. The questions were fact-based, and the answers contained within
the pages of the texts. These books were written not by lone authors but by teams, which
necessitated the removal of authors’ signed messages in favor of unsigned forewords or prefaces.
The focus on the progress of civilization remained, however, and Western civilization continued
to be the gold standard. Science led the way with an unquestioning acceptance of scientific
discovery as unambiguously positive. The narrative was chronological and linear, presenting
a clean, uncomplicated view of history. Smith, Muzzey, and Lloyd’s 1946 World History: The
Struggle for Civilization, for example, includes a middle section on “The Growth of Nationalism.”