The text book and the teaching of history

The text-book has played a highly important pedagogical role in history teaching. Traditionally, it was the way information was passed on from teacher to pupils. Today, however, given the quantity of information electronically available, it is necessary to reappraise its use, inasmuch as new theoretical proposals based on a different perspective of history, research as a pedagogical tool and its didactical usefulness indicate the need to (a) reassess the way history is taught in schools; (b) ensure a correspondence between the text and the way historical knowledge is built up; (c) redirect the syllabus towards historical problems; (d) resolve historical problems; (e) use an approach that unifies theory and practice; (f) encourage research using historical documents and (g) foment active historical research that can give real significance to historical facts.