The World's Worst Textbooks
As students around the world head back to school, many of the lessons they're learning are not only false -- they're dangerous.
BY SUZANNE MERKELSON | SEPTEMBER 7, 2010
IRAN
Lesson plan: Religious warfare, gender roles
Subject matter: Iranian leaders may have embraced new media to share political messages with the world, but at home, indoctrination still starts in print. According to one study, Iranian textbooks teach seventh graders that "every Muslim youth must strike fear in the hearts of the enemies of God and their people through combat-readiness and skillful target shooting." Iranian males are obliged by law to perform 18 months of military service at age 19. The Islamic Republic, a 2008 Freedom House study reports, encourages students to embrace Islamic supremacy and an unequal political system in which "some individuals are born first-class citizens, due to their identity, gender, and way of thinking." Women, for example, are portrayed as "second class citizens," depicted mainly in family situations and at home.
Primary source: "Defensive jihad is incumbent upon every one, the young and the old, men and women, everyone, absolutely everyone, must take part in this sacred battle, fight to the best of his or her abilities or assist our fighters." -- from a seventh grade Islamic culture and religious studies textbook
China
Lesson plan: Alternate history
Subject matter: Chinese history textbooks, much like the country's hesitant acceptance of itself as a world power, are full of contradictions. China, in the eyes of millions of its students, is both meekly innocent and unmatched in military power, simultaneously modest and boastful. Chinese textbooks ignore the invasion of Tibet in 1950 and the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War, launched by China in response to Vietnam's occupation of Cambodia, and teach that China has only fought wars in self-defense. They also gloss over Chairman Mao Zedong's 1958 to 1961 Great Leap Forward, which resulted in mass famine and 30 million deaths.
One example of Chinese textbook chutzpah can be found in the chapters on World War II, known in some textbooks as "the Anti-Japanese War." The Japanese capture of the city of Nanjing -- often known as the "Rape of Nanjing," when up to 300,000 people were killed by Japanese troops -- is described in one Chinese textbook as "the most horrible [event] in world [history]." (To be fair, Japanese textbooks are little better; they tend to skim over the event, calling it an "incident," "massacre," or "massacre incident.") The Chinese version of history has it that Japan was defeated in the war because of Chinese resistance, not because of the U.S. entry into the war.
Primary source: "The fundamental reason for the victory [in World War II] is that the Chinese Communist Party became the core power that united the nation" -- from a widely used Chinese history textbook
SAUDI ARABIA
Lesson plan: Enemies of the faith
Subject matter: After the 9/11 attacks -- in which 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi -- King Abdullah made reform of Saudi textbooks, which had been replete with references to Christians, communists, Zionists, and Western "nonbelievers" as enemies of Muslims, a priority. Nine years later, progress has been slow. In 2006, Riyadh promised to remove "all intolerant passages," but some sources say children are still learning from texts that promote anti-Semitism and jihad. Once again, Saudi Arabia has claimed that textbooks and programs used both in the kingdom and by schools funded by Saudi Arabia elsewhere "will be completely overhauled over the next three years." Saudi schools in countries including the United States, Britain, France, Germany, and Turkey all use similar textbooks.
Primary source: "Fill in the blanks with the appropriate words (Islam, hellfire): Every religion other than ______________ is false. Whoever dies outside of Islam enters ____________." -- from a first-grade textbook
"As cited in Ibn Abbas: The apes are Jews, the people of the Sabbath; while the swine are the Christians, the infidels of the communion of Jesus" -- from an eighth-grade textbook on monotheism and jurisprudence
UNITED STATES
Lesson plan: Culture Wars 101
Subject matter: The Texas Board of Education ignited an international firestorm last spring when members approved a controversial new social studies curriculum. The new standards skew hard to the right -- championing American capitalism throughout and suggesting religious intentions on the part of the founding fathers.
Some of the most notable arguments were over language surrounding U.S. imperialism (now known as "expansionism") and birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger as a promoter of "eugenics," and an amendment to teachers that students be instructed to "describe the causes and key organizations and individuals of the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schlafly, the Contract with America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association." The board even recommended that Thomas Jefferson, creator of the expression "separation of church and state" be excluded from a list of world thinkers who inspired Enlightenment-era revolutions. And, in a salute to Democrats, "Bill Clinton's impeachment" will join Watergate in lessons on "political scandals."
The curriculum standards are reviewed every decade and serve as a template for textbook publishers. Texas's 4.8 million public school students make the state one of the largest markets for textbooks and a determinant of what the rest of the country's schoolchildren will study, with national publishers often tailoring their texts to Texas standards.
Primary source: The new curriculum hasn't hit textbooks yet, but pop quizzes are expected to have a slightly different look -- Newsweek recently published new study exercises that the Texas school board is likely to adopt:
"Explain how Arab rejection of the State of Israel has led to ongoing conflict." And "Evaluate efforts by global organizations to undermine U.S. sovereignty.
RUSSIA
Lesson plan: Buddy Stalin
Subject matter: It can't be easy to put a positive spin on Stalin, under whose leadership more than 20 million Russians lost their lives. But that's what's being attempted in Russia today. Encouraged by wilderness enthusiast and former KGB agent Vladimir Putin, the country's curriculum is engaging in a re-Stalinizing process called "positive history." Aleksandr Filippov, the author of a new Kremlin-approved textbook told the Times, "It is wrong to write a textbook that will fill the children who learn from it with horror and disgust about their past and their people."
His book devotes 83 pages to Joseph Stalin's industrialization plans, but only one paragraph to the Great Famine of 1932 to 1933 in which millions starved as a result of deeply flawed agricultural policy. The book also minimizes the role played by the Soviet Union's allies during Word War II, saying that they "limited themselves mainly to supplying arms, materials and provisions to the USSR."
Primary source: "[Stalin] acted entirely rationally -- as the guardian of a system, as a consistent support of reshaping the country into an industrialized state" -- from A History of Russia, 1900-1945
MONA HOOBEHFEKR/AFP/Getty Images
新闻报道 | 2010.09.12
美杂志评选全球最差教科书 中美伊榜上有名
9月7日，美国《外交政策》（Foreign Policy）杂志刊登了题为"全球最差教科书"的文章。该文作者苏珊娜·默克尔森（Suzanne Merkelson）对诸多国家中小学不同科目的课本内容进行了分析评价，包括对信息真实和全面性、政治正确性等评估。作者的结论是：许多国家教学课本的 内容不仅是错误的，而且是危险的。
以伊朗为例，默克尔森对伊朗的宗教课本内容以及对女性地位的定义提出批评。伊朗七年级宗教课课本教育学生说："每一个穆斯林青年都要掌握过硬的战争 本领和精湛的枪法，这样才能战胜真主的敌人。"伊朗法律规定，满19岁的男青年都要服18个月的兵役。人权组织"自由之家"（Freedom House)2008年报告称，伊朗鼓励该国的学生接受不平等的政治体制以及社会等级制度，女性被公然列为"二等公民"。《外交政策》还翻译了一句伊朗七 年级学生宗教课课本原文："无论男女老少，每个人都要参与'圣战'，尽最大努力抵抗攻击我们的人。"
中国由于中学历史课本中对一些历史事件的隐瞒或轻描淡写，也被《外交政策》杂志列入了"最差教科书国家"之一。该杂志具体举例说，"中国在中学历史 课本里没有提及1950年入侵西藏，并将1970年中越战争称为是自卫战争。对于毛泽东1958至1961年实行的'大跃进'政策也轻描淡写，不提毛这一 政策导致中国经济瘫痪以及近3000万人死亡的事实。
在介绍二战史部分，中国的历史课本将'南京大屠杀'定义为世界历史上最悲惨的事件。中国方面称，日本侵略者制造了'南京大屠杀'，杀死30万中国 人。"《外交政策》编辑默克尔森在此特地补充说明："日本历史教科书对这段历史的介绍也不值得提倡，许多版本的课本里将'南京大屠杀'称为'意外事件 '。"默克尔森还指出中国中学历史课本中的一句话："中国共产党为结束二次世界大战发挥了最根本的作用。"
2001年"911事件"19名恐怖嫌犯中有15人来自沙特阿拉伯。这一震惊全世界的恐怖袭击事件发生后，沙特国王阿卜杜拉宣布，将对该国中小学宗 教教材内容进行修改，删除对其他宗教派别攻击性的内容。美国《外交政策》编辑默克尔森认为，沙特阿拉伯对教材的修改进程在"911事件"过去9年的今天， 没有太大进展。大部分学生接受的宗教教育中仍然存有对其他教派的侮辱内容。默克尔森援引沙特小学一年级课本的一道填空题："除了___以外,其他宗教都 是错误的。非穆斯林死后进___。"八年级课本的有这样的表述："犹太人是猿猴...基督教徒是猪。"
俄罗斯的历史教材在《外交政策》杂志的评选中，也被列为"不符合历史事实"的负面典型。斯大林对苏联的统治被刻意美化。克里姆林宫最新批准通过的俄 罗斯教材的作者之一亚历山大·菲利波夫（Aleksandr Filippov）在接受《泰晤士报》采访时表示，不应该撰写讲述可怕历史的教科书，让孩子们以此了解过去的时代和那时人们的可怕行为。
《外交政策》也特别对美国德克萨斯修改教科书，夸大强调圣经和基督教信仰在美国历史的作用提出批评。今年6月，德克萨斯州教育委员会宣布，对该州中 小学生使用的社会教科书中的历史部分内容进行大规模修改。修改举措主要受该州基督教右翼要求。修改内容包括强调"上帝创世说"，建议在对美国国父的介绍 中，将《独立宣言》的起草者之一，托马斯·杰弗逊删除在外，因为他首先提出了政教分离原则。
作者：谢菲
责编：潇阳
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