REBUTTING THE CRITICS TEACHER SETS, MEETS HIGH STANDARD.(Main)

Byline: Tim Spofford Staff writer

Editor's note: This is the second of two stories looking at how social studies is taught in suburban and city high schools.

COLONIE - For decades American students have learned in history classes that the colony of Georgia was settled by debtors, convicts and the rabble of London.

But not in Linda Harrison's class at Shaker High School.

Book in hand, darting up and down the aisles in her accelerated American history class, Harrison told a rapt group of 17 juniors recently that their textbook is wrong - wrong to emphasize that debtors had settled colonial Georgia.

Those first settlers may have been poor, but they were interviewed and had their names printed in London newspapers to be sure they were of sound character, she said. Just a dozen debtors were on the first boat to Georgia. "Now does that sound like just anybody could go?"

Students, teachers and administrators at Shaker High say Harrison has what it takes to rank among the finest teachers: knowledge, energy and concern for her students. At a time when the nation's social …