Yu Dangxu

Teacher

If the materials in textbooks are selected from historical events, they should be faithful to basic facts. It is fine to teach students to be resourceful in the face of critical situations through an anecdotal story of inventor Thomas Edison. But I don’t think the whole story should be based on fabricated events. When using historical material, personality, emotion and other psychological characteristics should not contradict real history.

Nowadays, students of primary and middle schools have more and convenient access to information and are very open-minded. When choosing learning materials for them, we adults should carefully check not only the values they convey but also the basic facts in them. It takes time for children to accept certain values that later form conviction. If they find facts supporting the value they were taught were fabricated they will question the value itself. textbooks are not used to teach news or history, but as educational tools or a blueprint for teaching. Such articles are just topics for interaction between teachers and students in class. Therefore, there is no need to be overly critical about their authenticity. What matters is whether the articles selected have positive energy and are educational and inspirational, whether they promote traditional virtues and integrity, and whether they are enlightening to kids.

As a matter of fact, it is impossible for every article in textbooks to come from real life events or a person’s personal experience. Fairy tales, folk tales and novels are generally adopted by textbooks for kids of all ages. We all know they are not true, but no one questions them being used. Take novels for example, they derive from real life events but have been modified somehow for literary purposes to make characters more typical and provoke interest from readers or create conflict.