We’ve all heard the story of Paul Revere— how he rode his horse and shouted, “The redcoats are coming!” How much of this story is accurate? Most historians agree Revere did not do this on his own; he was joined by William Dawes and Samuel Prescott. Also, the people who were awakened by these men had been planning this for a while.  They even had supplies stashed away for this event. If this is actually what happened, why do our textbooks write it in a way that makes it seem like Mr. Revere did it all by himself?

Many aspects of American history that are more disturbing or embarrassing are very “watered down” or rarely gone into with detail. The US History textbook from ushistory.org describes the relationships between the slave drivers and slaves as this, “As they had little connection to the slave, they tended to treat the slaves more brutally.” This is basically the only time they mention how the slaves were sometimes treated other than a comment on how their living conditions were small and food consisted of “a few morsels of meat and bread.” We all know the true harshness slaves were treated with, so why did they make it sound like it wasn’t that bad?

Of course the most probable reason for this “watering down” is most likely to protect the youth, but is it actually helping them? Sarah Waldrop, a freshman, said, “I do think they leave out important information.” She also expressed the dangers of leaving disturbing things out of textbooks by saying, “The reason why we have this stuff in textbooks is because we don’t want it to happen again.”

Mrs. Faris, a history teacher at Bob Jones, had a different opinion. She said, “Textbooks can’t be completely comprehensive. It’s the primary points.” She also pointed out that “it’s developed by humans so there is going to be some inaccuracies, but by and large, textbooks are reliable.” I completely agree with this, you can’t have all the information of the past in one textbook.

However, the people who write the textbooks could use information that is more relevant and accurate. Schools could also consider using online textbooks instead. With a set of printed textbooks, the information will become more outdated the longer schools keep them. With online textbooks information can be updated instantaneously.