Textbook reds : schoolbooks, ideology, and Eastern German identity / John Rodden.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rodden, John.

Series:

Post-Communist cultural studies

Post-Communist cultural studies series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Textbooks--Germany (East).

Textbooks.

Education--Curricula--Germany (East).

Education.

Education--Curricula.

Germany (East).

Communism and education.

Physical Description:

xxxv, 443 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm.

Other Title:

Schoolbooks, ideology, and Eastern German identity

Place of Publication:

University Park, Pa. : The Pennsylvania State University Press, [2006]

Contents:

Prologue: Creating Young Comrades xxv

Introduction: Ideology as Core Curriculum 1

1945: Textbooks and German Re-Education 1

From Brown to Red? 3

The (East) German Ideology 7

Part I Of Politics and Letters-and Numbers

1 German for the East Germans: Language and Literature 13

Reared in the DDR 15

Mother-Tongue Education 21

Socialist Fatherland Education 27

Excursus: Thalmann uber alles? Vicissitudes of a Socialist State Icon 33

Living Heroes, or the DDR Cult of Personality 41

Canon Fodder for Young Revolutionaries 47

Excursus: A Bruderland Comparison: Soviet and Post-Soviet Textbooks 56

The Advanced High School Curriculum 65

Books Are Weapons 68

2 Terra Verde, Terra Rosso: Geography 69

The Expanding Red Earth 69

Excursus: &lsOur Socialist Fatherland&rs: How Fifth-Graders Learned to Love the Heimat 72

Excursus: "Elementary" Political Geography 74

Excursus: Amerika Through Eastern Eyes 81

The Upper Grades 84

Of Class and Soil 87

3 My Country, Left or Wrong? Civics 89

Marxed Menschen 89

Excursus: Socialist Morality for Tenth Graders 94

In Lenin's Corner: The Model Socialist Citizen 95

Education for Hatred 97

"Trust Is Good, but Control Is Better" 109

4 Progressive Lessons of the Past: History 111

The Past is KA 111

History Class / Class History 112

Modern Times 121

Excursus: Marx and Engels as Role Models 124

"Socialism Is Winning!" 126

"Made in East Germany," or the Historical (Re)Invention of the DDR 129

Overtaken by History? 1989 and the Perestroika of DDR Historiography 136

Excursus: The Black Book as Anti-Textbook: History Turns a Corner? 138

Bearing the Double Burden of History 145

5 Socialist Science: Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics 147

Science, Western versus Eastern 147

Biology 148

Biopolitics? 149

Excursus: Social, a.k.a. Socialist, Hygiene 152

Chemistry 155

Chemical Reactions, Progressive Results 155

Excursus: "Organic" Chemistry, or the Law of M-L 156

Of Applied Science and Agitprop 158

Mathematics 161

The Simple Arithmetic of Progressivism 161

Excursus: Army Algebra for Ninth-Graders 165

Party Figures, or the Higher Calculus of M-L 167

Part II The Voices Behind the Page: Conversations about Post-Communist Education and Eastern German Life with Faculty and Students

6 Arts and Humanities 195

1 "History Lessons" for Would-Be Revolutionaries 195

2 Pedagogy of the Distressed: A German Teacher's Self-Criticism 198

3 "My Post-Communist Brecht": A Weimar Student's Weltanschauung 207

4 West Side (Hi)Story I: A Wossi's Postcommunist Critique of Humboldt Historians and Jammerossis 220

5 The Strains of Silence: A Music Teacher's Brave (New) Career 232

6 "My Teachers Ignored the Ideological Crap" 243

7 "French Leave": A Gifted Language Student Goes AWOL 247

8 West Side (Hi)Story II: A Wossi in Wittenberg 265

9 Running On, or Training for the (Russian) Olympics 271

10 Varieties of Academic Experience: A German View 279

11 "Proud to Be German" 288

7 Physical and Social Sciences 299

1 Of Biophysics and Metaphysics: Post-Communism Meets McUniversity 299

2 Post-Communist Social Studies? A Teacher-Student Conflict of Generations 313

3 "I Was a True Believer": A Convinced Communist Student Looks Back 321

4 "My Father Was in the Party": A Daughterly Diptych 329

8 Education for Tolerance: Of Ideology, Identity, and Intolerance, or Among (German and Jewish) Schoolchildren 345

1 Border-Crossing after Checkpoint Charlie 348

2 Forward and Never Forget-Tolerance? A Berlin Teacher's Post-Communist "Class" Struggles 362

3 Return of the Pink Rabbit? 367

4 Breaching Walls, Breaching Faith 375

5 The Strains of Silence II: Hospitality or Hitlerism in Weimar? 379

6 "Re-Education for Tolerance": A Civic Leader Speaks Out 383

Epilogue: Curriculum Without a Core 391.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0271025212

OCLC:

61481523

Publisher Number:

9780271025216