Teaching Comparative

Teaching from OLD textbooks

Michael Gordon e-mailed me last week on his next to last day of school.

Reflecting on the year just past, he noted ruefully, that helping students meet the College Board's standards was difficult since "our book [is] so old (Mexico and Iran not in the book, Nigeria in the 2nd Republic, Blair just starting to run for PM, and the concepts NOT discussed)."

I won't mention his school district because I don't want to cast aspersions. This may be a "dirty little secret" among teachers of AP Comparative.

People who most often mention the textbooks they use are those who are asking about textbooks because they finally got approval to buy new ones or the fortunate few who have the resources to stay up to date. Teachers who have to struggle with 8-12 year old textbooks, quietly persevere. If we're going to deal with the issue, we have to discuss it. Here's my beginning. Use the "Comment" link at the bottom of the entry to add your 2¢ worth.

When I was teaching, I felt like I was one of the lucky ones since I usually had a pretty up-to-date text. In 15 years, my students got 4 different texts or editions. I always had to fight for new texts, but playing the "AP requirements are different" and "political science is not history" cards went a long way toward persuading department chairs and curriculum coordinators to find the money to purchase new books.

But what do you do if have only a textbook that describes Nigeria's 2nd republic and Sani Abacha, the Major-Blair transition, the Yeltsin-Putin transition, and the aftermath of Deng Xiaoping's death? Even if your textbook describes Fox's first years as Mexican president, Khatami's presidency in Iran, and Obasanjo's campaign for reelection, your teaching job is complicated.

1. Current events articles can compensate to a certain degree. But events don't happen at regular intervals, nor do they necessarily emphasize the structures, processes, and concept we want to teach.

2. The Internet can help as long as you insist on critical thinking, verifying information students find online, and requiring students to put what they learn into their own words.

How about assigning groups of students to write updates to the country chapters in the old textbook? School libraries are not much help, but if you can get access for everyone to the Internet, this task is achievable.

Perhaps competing teams could work to produce the best updates (to encourage critical thinking and verification). Translating what they find into their own words can be encouraged by providing a format and/or a set of questions to answer. Look at the organization of the textbook and ask students to follow that pattern. Or use the AP organization, and ask students to update the textbook with that model. A format will discourage simple cutting and pasting from Wikipedia articles (which are first rate candidates for verification).

Depending upon your resources, these updates could be duplicated and distributed or they could become presentations. Your comments and evaluations ought to be parts of what is handed out or presented. If you do have competing groups, the winners should be determined by something more than a popular vote.

3. Get yourself some examination copies of new textbooks. Publishers do want you to see what they're offering. And if your text book is more than 5 years old, there may have been two new editions of most textbooks. Go to the publishers' web sites. I have collected links to many of them at http://apcomparativegov.com/textsites.html.

It's even better if you can find the name of the local or nearby publisher's representative and call. Ask for a sample copy and at least samples of ancillary materials. When it comes time to order new books, you really do need to know what you're buying.

And don't stop with just the traditional textbooks. Get copies of Timothy Lim's book, Doing Comparative Politics (You might have to buy a copy of Lim's book because the publisher is a small one. Used copies are available at Amazon.com.) and Patrick O'Neil's book Essentials of Comparative Politics. Note that O'Neil's book is accompanied by online cases describing 10 countries (including the 6 AP countries).

Use these books as teaching sources. Create lessons and lectures from them to update the textbook your students are reading.

Do you have other ideas? Use the "Comments" link below to share them with us. Or send them to me at Ken.Wedding@gmail.com and I'll post them.

posted by Ken Wedding @ 12:47 PM