After reading this chapter, I started to question the use of textbooks in class. The author's suggest that textbooks should be used in conjunction with other materials, but I am thinking about completely removing textbooks all together!
My main reason for removing text books is because they produce lazy work. Everyone knows that its not difficult for a teacher to say "read chapter one in class and complete the discussion questions at the end of the section for homework", but it is not teaching students how to read and analyze, it is teaching them how to skim and copy answers word-for-word. I recall the many times that a teacher had me work or read from a textbook and I found it very easy and "safe". I knew that I would finish before my classmates and I would be able to do other work or read to pass the rest of the class time. Even copying definitions from the glossary was a joke, because so many of my classmates would copy the entire paragraph word-for-word without understanding the meaning. They would endlessly copy the examples and other definitions of the word, without looking at the context of the word and determining the correct definition. This is NOT learning. Textbooks are the easy way out for students and teachers when it comes to lessons.
Another reason that I am against textbooks, is because they are almost always BORING. There, I said it. When I heard about the policy that all students would have to read mostly non-fiction, my heart dropped because it sounds so dreadful. Then I realized... non-fiction isn't always boring! As long as something is written well, students will enjoy it. I have read numerous forms of non-fiction literature and I didn't even realize that it was non-fiction. There are interesting stories to be told and the best way to share them is through personal accounts, diaries and articles. Our students need to learn how to read and analyze in the real world!
Textbooks almost always present one side or one aspect of what they are teaching. This is most obvious in my experience through history textbooks. I know I already brought up this point but, history is written by the winners. (In reality, there are accounts of both sides, but the winner's story is the one most widely taught.) This can apply to my major (English)
as well. Last semester my professor had us read historical accounts about Othello and Julius Caesar after we started reading Shakespeare's plays. (WAIT! You mean the plays are reflective of real historical events?!?! - me last semester). We were able to look at the ways Shakespeare changed the details of the the stories to make them more dramatic, and I learned a lot about Shakespeare in that class than any other class on Shakespeare combined. Who said that non-fiction had to be boring?
I'm gonna leave you with two challenges:
1.) Stop using that dreaded textbook! (Nobody likes it!)
2.) Look for exciting/interesting non-fiction works for your students to read!
I think that is a pretty bold statement Jessica, and I like how strong your opinion is. Here is the thing, I can not see a scenario in which a Math, History, or English teacher eliminates the textbook completely from their curriculum. I agree with you, textbooks are boring and if it is the only resource used in class, it will absolutely produce regurgitation of facts on a test and not the enduring understandings we backwards design teachers are looking for. However, textbooks do provide that "raw material" D+Z described in the chapter, and if carefully chosen, are not as bad as others. I know nobody likes the textbook, but sometimes there are certain science, math, and historical concepts that require that dreadful textbook.
ReplyDeleteI was also thinking while reading this chapter, has there ever been any good English Lit. textbooks? With that textbook assignment coming around the corner, I found myself thinking where to begin looking for textbooks in our English field...
I agree that textbooks are extremely boring and in many cases one sided. History is written by the winners. The problem with eliminating textbooks completely is that students lose that background knowledge. The use of textbooks gives the students the facts and background so that they can analysis other sources. If a teacher were to hand a student all different documents and source about any time in history with out the proper background the students would be lost. I do agree that it seems like simple and safe work but that simple work is needed to complete the tough work.
ReplyDeleteJessica, I completely agree with your opinion on avoiding assigning text books. I am also guilty in the past of simply copying word for word definitions and answers in high school without absorbing any of the content matter. I think one reason teachers often do this is because it is an easy way to plan a lesson since the questions are already provided in the text books. As you mention, I also do not plan on having text books in my class because as I mention in my post, I can not recall any of the information I read from these books so many years ago. I also often did not remember what I read in textbooks fifteen minutes after I read them, which shows just how ineffective they truly are.
ReplyDeleteI must say I think textbooks can be useful when they are correctly implemented. You are completely right about them "producing lazy work" and about many of them being boring. There is hope though! I happen to love some of the textbooks I'm reading this semester. While the majority may be dreadful to get through, we can choose textbooks that are not. We also can choose to use them in a way that they do not just become busy work, or lazy work. If we know that students are not going to learn anything from answering some end of chapter questions then we find other ways. I personally like the way 2 of my professors choose a phrase or two from the assigned reading and ask us to interpret it or provide our thoughts. I think doing this is a good way for students to really analyze and reflect on what they are reading. It also is a good motivator to actually do the reading.
ReplyDeleteAs a student who has read to read many textbooks cover to cover, some can be very boring. However, there has been some that are better than others. They're also a little more interesting if I'm not cramming and reading too much at once. It's definitely something that as a student I've had to get used to. I really liked the idea of implementing other kinds of reading material into lessons and assignments. I think it will be very effective if there are all different reading materials assigned to students. I think this would have helped me in the past with some concepts that are more difficult to fully comprehend than others and I think other students would benefit from this idea as well.
ReplyDeleteI love the strength of the declaration! I have to say, I've read some pretty engaging, enjoyable textbooks. Not tons of them, but a few. And I can't really imagine teaching a science or math class without some sort of common source to refer back to throughout the course. Basing all science teaching off of primary sources, for example, would be even more boring than a textbook. Scientific journal articles are painful to read, even for someone who is interested in the content. And teaching from popular journalism articles would also be a disaster, since there's a lot of inaccurate, lazy scientific journalism out there. That could be a great starting off point for discussion, but not for teaching actual content. Non-fiction is great, but usually focuses on very specific topics; there'd be a lot of gaps left uncovered. Even though I appreciate where you are coming from, for my content area I'm not quite ready to renounce the textbook.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure I am ready to drop the textbook entirely but I get your point. For me, a history textbook is something that gives a base from which to work on. It leads to a larger discussion of primary source documents that can be used to have a much larger understanding of a topic in history. I can see how a textbook would not matter much in a high school lit class. My question to you is what if you are not teaching a high school lit class? What if you end up in a 6th grade English class where the basics are still very important? Does the textbook matter then?
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