Israel
Critical Analysis
A Critical Analysis: The Modern Middle East: Teaching Unit 6 for High School Modern World History
Teacher’s Curriculum Institute, Publisher
Introduction
The Teachers’ Curriculum Institute was formed in 1989 to “create teaching strategies and materials to allow middle and high school social studies teachers to reach all learners in the diverse classroom.” TCI provides the following comments about its material:
TCI is a publisher of history and social studies curricula (History Alive for grades 5–12; and Social Studies Alive for K–4) that utilizes an approach to learning consisting of “a series of instructional practices that allows students with multiple intelligences to ‘experience history.’”
The JCRC reviewed a unit for high school called “The Modern Middle East” published in 1996. According to TCI, the goal of the curriculum is to engage “students in the history of the Middle East through a process of self-discovery and interactive pedagogy. The unit is filled with dynamic activities that make this history come alive for students…”
A careful review of this curriculum reveals a number of inaccuracies. This is particularly true in the presentation of the Arab–Israeli conflict.
Its manipulation of facts is clearly aimed at producing feelings of sympathy in the students for one side of the conflict, the Palestinian. This is accomplished by utilizing unacceptable pedagogical methods. The result is indoctrination imbedded in the education system.
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