The best Curricula books: Reddit reviews

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This emphasizes different points from those made in Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me. https://www.amazon.com/Lies-My-Teacher-Told-Everything/dp/0743296281

Texas is the most populous state to approve textbooks at the state level. That means textbook publishers cater to Texas or their books fail, and schools elsewhere are often stuck with whatever Texas approved.

Texas is a Red state still deeply in denial about slavery and racism. Last I checked, kids in Texas public schools are still taught that the Civil War started for a "variety" of reasons, only one of which was slavery.

Publishers who want a successful textbook must therefore cater to Texas by downplaying the viciousness and significance of slavery. This is a primary reason why teachers have a hard time finding the materials they need.

I enjoyed this https://www.amazon.com/Lies-My-Teacher-Told-Everything/dp/0743296281 in middle school but it's a great read, and apparently has been updated. "The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China" is good too.

American historian/sociologist/professorJames Loewen showed that US history books used in high schools across America present American history as a story of non-stop progress toward perfection, indoctrinating us that we alone have our hearts in the right place and make the world better. It's pretty horiffic.

I think what's missing is this perspective: https://www.amazon.com/Knowledge-Gap-Americas-education-system/dp/0735213550. That is, Common Core trains students to read short passages for "comprehension," but we've dramatically reduced time on other subjects. I have doubts about how many kids are actually reading books in their language arts classes when the emphasis is on reading short passages for tests. The solution proposed in the book is to better prepare them for the tests by spending more time on other subject areas, but I think the real problem is the idea of "reading comprehension" as a test construct. Let students read, discuss, interpret, and write about books on a variety of genres and topics rather than having to perform a narrow form of "comprehension" (i.e. choosing the "right answer" on a test).

Left doesn’t mean what you think it means, read Lies My Teacher Told Me, it’s a really good book.

The fact that conservahole continues after years of repeated disinformation, supports the premise that Reddit is aggressively centrist.

They kind of create the problem though no? The sub is almost a field base where they can always retreat to after trying to wreck everyone else’s discussions.

Also, questioning the upvote system? That’s the whole site, say unpopular stuff in a community and you’re going to get downvotes. How is that surprising? if Ella your world views get downvotes you’re noticing a pattern, you’re just making the wrong conclusions when you claim everyone else is wrong.

you can read a book called

https://www.amazon.com/Lies-My-Teacher-Told-Everything/dp/0743296281

because it has been far longer than 60-70 years

as Smedley Butler said:

“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”

I am a Computer Science educator. I teach classes 6th to 12th grade as well as run specialized classes for higher level, non-age specific groups.

I would recommend Grant Wiggens' and Jay McTighe's Understanding by Design as a book for curriculum development. It is a great starting point for creating curriculum that can be evaluated and iterated upon.

Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Design-Grant-Wiggins/dp/1416600353/

Best of luck!

Lies My Teacher Told Me: https://www.amazon.com/Lies-My-Teacher-Told-Everything/dp/0743296281

Not specifically about religion, but more about how school curriculum has been driven by a minority of special interest groups, many of whom are religious.

Check out the book Understanding by design. It is a pretty solid model for planning. Understanding By Design https://www.amazon.com/dp/1416600353/ref=cm_sw_r_awdo_4TATBY5D7SRVHSHHY9NN

Also called backwards design, it focuses on starting with the learning outcomes for a lesson or unit then the product that will show student mastery of said learning and then breaking it down into teachable steps.

UBD was the process I used when I started. At this point in my career I tend to, as others have said, just wing it. Though I do pull the proxy back out if I’m struggling with putting together something new.

Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong https://www.amazon.com/dp/0743296281/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_i_EVRCDZ5M31VAWGR0X2Z7 is an incredibly accessible read. It engages the reader with historical facts while bitching about how text books approach complex and important conversations about history. It's not 100% itself but it's a great primer, and quite eye opening.

Reading (like most things in education) became extremely political. It was actually conservatives who pushed for science of reading approaches (backed by science/data) and liberal/progressive educators that were pushing balanced literacy.

HIGHLY recommend Natalie Wexler's The Knowledge Gap.

Yep. John Taylor Gatto talks about this, and much more. Start with The seven-lesson schoolteacher to get started.

That's my point. If you read this book it explains the problem; they are teaching reading comprehension as a decontextualized, abstract skill rather than in the context of actual content.

https://www.amazon.com/Knowledge-Gap-Americas-education-system/dp/0735213550

In other words, drilling in "main point" and "supporting evidence" while reading random passages about random topics doesn't help with comprehension.

In my observation (based on the work I've seen my daughter do) the passages they read are also often illogical, open to multiple interpretations, and/or incorrect, but students still have to choose a correct answer on a multiple choice test. From what I can see kids spend more time doing that than exploring content through reading, experiments, nature study, etc. Oh and many classrooms don't have many textbooks because school districts have stopped funding them in favor of buying more laptops.

As for Susskind's book, you can find it on Amazon, at least in the US. I'm not sure why it's not titled Classical Mechanics like the other two in the series, but there you are. Whether you choose that or Thorne and Blandford, or another reference, I hope your search for the meaning of tensors is fruitful!

I've also read, "Lies My Teacher Told Me."

>Americans have lost touch with their history, and in Lies My Teacher Told Me Professor James Loewen shows why. After surveying eighteen leading high school American history texts, he has concluded that not one does a decent job of making history interesting or memorable. Marred by an embarrassing combination of blind patriotism, mindless optimism, sheer misinformation, and outright lies, these books omit almost all the ambiguity, passion, conflict, and drama from our past.

I recommend it for the chest-thumping MAGA in your life.

I would suggest "The Theoretical Minimum"

https://www.amazon.com/Theoretical-Minimum-Start-Doing-Physics/dp/0465075681

It's not a pop sci book that give handwavy woo-woo explanations, it delves into the math but explains what the equations mean. A college educated person would have no problem with it.

Oh got you - without capitalizing the title thought you were trying to say a teacher was lying to you by making historically white-washed books required reading... and not the other way around with a book critical of American history being required reading.

This one:

https://www.amazon.com/Lies-My-Teacher-Told-Everything/dp/0743296281

There is a really good book that goes into this

https://www.amazon.com/Theoretical-Minimum-Start-Doing-Physics/dp/0465075681/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=theoretical+minimum&qid=1639841522&sprefix=theorei%2Caps%2C122&sr=8-1

And a youtube series taught by the author

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-rICyRc1Qz144U91HTd6zY9pDVVPwskg

I've never actually watched this, but Leonard Susskind's Theoretical Minimum set of courses might be worthwhile for you. There's also a book with the same title by him, which sounds like what you're looking for. The book and the courses are both stand-alone, the first isn't a textbook you need for the second.

I'm pretty sure the courses are free to watch, so I'd suggest starting with them. The eBook or paperback versions aren't that expensive, though.

The white-washing of history is by far the worst, IMO. I remember I had a US Civil War class in high school where the teacher explained slavery like it was some benevolent institution and said that the US Civil War had nothing to do with slavery, it was about state's rights. Which is technically true, yes. State's rights to allow farmers to OWN other human beings.

There are so many more examples I won't even begin, but there's a great book called Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong The chapter about Helen Keller is fascinating.

Obviously it's only about American history but I bet there are others written about other countries and the history they teach.

Sorry friend, your childhood was a lie. If you want to learn about more lies you were told read Lies My Teachers Told Me.

It focuses on US history and now I am wondering if there are similar books about other countries that I could read.

>Just because something happened prior does not mean it is a root cause.

I agree and that was my point originally - I'm not saying that imperialism is the only reason. I myself was saying Capitalism is not the only reasons why the US is prosperous - I was citing imperialism as just one other reason we can point to. How much "slavery" and "stolen land" affected US development is certainly debatable, but I think we can agree that it helped and the US benefit from it greatly.

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>Regarding land theft, the land itself and its resources obviously predated the colonists yet had not been usefully developed.

I was also raised to believe this, but it's actually not true. There's a great book called "The lies my teacher told me" that's brilliant.

You might be surprised to find out that that the largest Native American city had a peak population up to 40,000 people. By comparison, Paris had ~250,000 at the same time. So while it wasn't as large as some European cities, Native Americans weren't as sparse as we were taught in schools.

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>As for slavery, history of slave labor within countries has no meaningful correlation with current wealth.

If I invested $50 into bitcoin in 2000 it might be worth $50 million today. I wouldn't say that my $50 had "no correlation with my current wealth." Slave labor created the $50 investment in early America and underpins much of our present-day wealth and prosperity

This sounds so much like my childhood it's scary, right down to the story about the lock. Except that my parents also sent weird emails to the head of the school telling her I'd "lied" when I didn't; tried to make me repeat a grade level at the same school; forcibly drugged me on experimental meds (stimulant amphetamines) without any diagnosis and completely on a whim, ignoring my screaming, crying and begging, which was unbelievably traumatic (ages 12.5 and 16.5, respectively); unwillingly IQ-tested me through the end of high school; sent me to a neurologist where electrodes were glued to my scalp to find out what was (in my mother's words) "wrong with me"; tricked me into attending various "appointments"; and told pretty much everyone in their lives that I was a "special needs" kid (I wasn't). All of this in addition to their regular shouting and frightening tantrums.

Also some creepy / very disturbing sexual stuff from my father.

I am in my 30s and still don't speak to them.

I wish I had some advice for you. All I can say is that it does get better. Think seriously about college and your plans for getting out. You don't have to stay in touch with them as an adult, but do try to live a good life. Success is the best revenge.

To the lack of motivation in school, you might find this book relatable.

It's literally the alt-rights playbook to obfuscate truth and use "open minded" people as tools to control narratives. It's no coincidence that you would feel that way.

I would recommend staying away from comment sections on internet posts, at least until the election is over. It's all in overdrive right now to influence things.

I would say instead, as a general recommendation to anyone reading this, to read some books about how history can be used for ideological purposes and how to avoid it when you encounter it. Specifically, Lies My Teacher Told Me is, I think, required reading if any of us are going to survive this century.

Anyone interested in "why" our history is taught a certain way? Check out Lies My Teacher Told Me. https://www.amazon.com/Lies-My-Teacher-Told-Everything/dp/0743296281 It talks about the Nadir of American race relations, a period after the Civil War until the 1940's or so, maybe until the civil rights movements in the '60's. Where race relations were the worst in our country. Arguably, even worse that prior to emancipation. And we're going in the wrong direction now.

Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride

Revere was detained by the British after a couple towns. Samual Prescott is who actually completed the ride.

There’s a ton more “facts” we learn when we’re young in history class that aren’t true.

Check out the book Lies My Teachers Told Me by James Loewen

From Lies My Teacher Told Me

> Almost every American student knows that Keller was deaf and blind, yet learned to read, write, and speak. But textbooks almost never discuss Helen Keller’s adult life. In fact, Keller had a fascinating and consequential career as radical socialist. She praised the Soviet Union, supported unions, donated money to the NAACP, and even hung a red flag (a symbol of the Soviet Union, and of socialism) over her desk. Throughout her life, Keller was criticized for her “radical politics.” Whether we agree with Keller’s beliefs or not, Keller was a remarkable woman, whose legacy stretches far beyond her deaf-blindness—and yet almost no history textbooks say so.

I remember her being the subject of a number of days of lessons scattered across my own time in school. And every one of them focused on how she learned to read and write and go to college. Not one ever mentioned that she used that ability to say things like this:

> The few own the many because they possess the means of livelihood of all ... The country is governed for the richest, for the corporations, the bankers, the land speculators, and for the exploiters of labor. The majority of mankind are working people. So long as their fair demands - the ownership and control of their livelihoods - are set at naught, we can have neither men's rights nor women's rights. The majority of mankind is ground down by industrial oppression in order that the small remnant may live in ease.

I would STRONGLY recommend The Theoretical Minimum by Leonard Susskind and George Hrabovsky. While not strictly focused on QM, it’s an excellent introduction to physics and some of the basic mathematics required.

Any one any thoughts on "the theoretical minimum" by Leonard Susskind? Decent place to start?

https://www.amazon.com/Theoretical-Minimum-Start-Doing-Physics/dp/0465075681/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1538567639&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=the+theoretical+minimum&dpPl=1&dpID=41mYr5xwzeL&ref=plSrch

Great book, I highly recommend it. Amazon page