‘Shepherding not learning’

Convinced of the value of a good textbook as a teaching and learning resource, Alex Diamond set out to understand teachers’ thinking about Holocaust textbooks and what it would
be for a textbook to represent Holocaust history adequately. As Diamond’s discussion shows, this is a multi-faceted issue. Evaluating textbook representation involves reflecting as much on aims as on content, Diamond argues, and it requires history educators to be clear about what they want textbooks to do. It also involves thinking about the ethics of representation and about how we make the people and events of the past present in our classrooms.