Fragmenting history into unconnected 'facts' also guarantees, however,that students will not be able to relate many of these terms to their own lives and will retain almost none of them after the six-weeks' grading period. However, inquiry textbooks require more active teaching. Classes can't just plow through them. . . . Perhaps it is because inquiry textbooks do not rely on rote learning that teachers and administrators soon abandoned them. The inquiry approach was too much work.
Textbooks offer security.
Teachers can hide behind them when principals, parents, or students challenge them to defend their work. Teaching against the text might be construed as critical of the school system. . . Teachers could get in trouble for doing that. For several decades sociologists have documented Americans' distrust of the next generation. Parents may feel undermined when children get tools of information and inquiry not available to adults and use them in ways that seem to threaten adult-held values.