Earlier quoted context omitted.
Every high school chemistry textbook I've seen actually works this way! It's horrible. The chapter starts with Dalton, works up through Rutherford and Bohr, and the last two or three I've seen ended there. Each section is presented as fact, and the kids are quizzed to make sure they know the material, before tearing it all down and teaching them a new bogus theory in the next section. Ugh.
Am I the only one who enjoyed this approach? I was taught atomic theory chronologically starting with the plum pudding model, then rutherford's model, then Bohr's model and finally the quantum models. At each stage, the focus was on: * What observations led the scientists in question to propose the model? e.g. in Rutherford's case, there was an extensive discussion on the gold-foil experiment, the observations he saw…
While today I would appreciate it for what you point out, at the time, those lessons were lost on me, and I was a thoughtful kid. I think if the pedagogy were more oriented around the progess of the scientific method, it would have been fantastic.
It seemed misguided, though, in the context of a chemistry chapter on the nature of atoms. Let's also not fail to acknowledge that a gifted teacher can make all the difference in how a given approach might be, and I imagine that the more complex, contextual picture that respects that our understanding is still evolving would be superior in the hands of a gifted teacher.