Allegory of the Cave: "Questioning Textbook Narratives"

According to Ken Osborne, 'From a student's viewpoint, one could not do much with a story, or at least not with stories as presented in textbook's. except to learn from them, for the stories often carried a moral message. Even at their best, however, textbook narratives were not designed to be questioned.' (Osbourne, 5) Historical account's have often been referred to as lessons for the present. There are there as a means to understand the thinking of people at the time, so we can see the moral behind the stories relayed. In order to convey the messages learnt, it is vital as educators to bring in different perspective to see realities of the time. Sometimes some of these different perspectives are not presented in texts our students learn from, which adds the importance of discussion and debate to topics related today.

Plato's, Allegory of the Cave, comes to mind. Where sometimes we chose to see the shadow's presented before us. When we are presented with a new perspective that is considered 'different', we become fearful of change and even hostile to such thoughts. After all, we tend to fear what we do not know.
When teaching to support '21st century thinking skills', I feel that there needs to be a level of creative thought in how we prepare our students to acquire those skills. 

I feel as educators we learn Bloom's Taxonomy in teacher training as a way of thinking and developing knowledge in a hierarchical manner. Although I like the taxonomy to formulate questions, it was formed as a theory of assessment however it has become a theory of teaching. (Case (2013), 196) I feel if it is used as a theory of teaching, where thinking critically or higher order thinking is hierarchical, then yes how would we 'meet all the curriculum expectations?

However, if we teach critical thinking where we are, as a colleague of mine once stated, 'teaching against the textbook', then as teachers we need to take an integrated approach by equipping our students with the following 5 types of intellectual resources:

1. Background Knowledge: knowledge of relevant information about a topic
2. Criteria for Judgement:  knowledge of the appropriate criteria or grounds for judging the reasonableness or merits of the options presented by a thinking challenge
3. Critical Thinking Vocabulary: For example the difference between a conclusion and a premise
4. Thinking Strategies: There are many strategies on could draw upon, such as following a comprehensive decision-making model, or they may be very focused, addressing a specific task, such as paraphrasing a statement to improve understanding.
5. Habits of Mind: commitments to the range of values and principles of careful and conscientious thinker. (Case (2005), 3)​

I've come by Roland Case's work last year, in a course on creative and critical thinking, since I'm doing my Masters specialist in Classroom. These concepts really stuck with me because sometimes I feel curriculum documents also reflect Bloom's Taxonomy on how content is delivered. As a result of this, as teachers it may be difficult to break away from our 'norm' of teaching because as teachers we tend to, sometimes, teach in the way we were taught. Then I question, how can we romanticise to 'teach against the textbook' when we are not challenging ourselves of the process as well?