This exercise was surprising because I’ve had dozens of textbooks over the course of my education and I think students are just led to believe that textbooks are the source of all knowledge when it comes to their subject matter. After this exercise I can definitely see that textbooks present certain information and do unfortunately leave other information out. I don’t think textbooks should necessarily come with a warning but educators should definitely be on the lookout for such perspectives so they can get other materials to supplement the book. For one class I took in high school we got a primary source anthology in addition to our textbook which made it easier to compare information. In the examples we read in class I felt they had themes more than perspective. In the examples I read I found that one focused more on the local economic aspects of the depression whereas another focused on the bigger, global aspects. So I think that rather than teaching students how read textbooks, they should be taught how to identify certain themes and patterns, so they can better identify what can be considered a fact and what can be considered a perspective.
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