In Defense of Textbooks
We’re reading a book called Subjects Matter by Harvey Daniels and Steven Zelman. It’s written for teachers to help adolescent students get the most of readings in their content area. Mine is Spanish. We don’t do a ton of reading in Spanish. We focus more on developing comprehension and speaking skills. Reading and writing are also important skills, but let’s face it. In high school the kids aren’t going to be reading pages upon pages in Spanish. Our specific assignment this week involved a reading in the D & Z book on textbook use in the classroom. According to the authors (pp.37-46):
- Textbooks are overused.
- Textbooks should be supplemented generously or replaced with other reading materials where possible.
- Textbooks are superficial.
- Textbooks are exceedingly hard to read.
- Textbooks are badly designed.
- Textbooks are authoritarian.
- Textbooks often are inaccurate.
- Textbooks are not written for students.
- Textbooks cost too much.
Except for the last point, I disagree for the most part with these statements. They are only true for BAD textbooks. And not all textbooks are bad!!! In my experience, textbooks have enhanced and guided my study, allowing me to learn on my own, reinforce lecture, helped me structure my studying, provided additional and interesting information that couldn’t be covered in class, and served as excellent resources. I have quite a collection of textbooks that I have saved because they continue to be valuable to me, and perhaps one day to my kids. Now I have had some poor or outdated textbooks. Those I didn’t keep, and luckily I can make an occasional dime with them on eBay.
Textbooks can be wonderful learning tools in the foreign language classroom. They introduce material thematically, are supplemented with audio and video CD-ROMs. to accompany cultural themes in the text and provide native exposure. They are COLORFUL and attractive. Their organization is very helpful to instructors, and the appendices, glossaries, conjugation charts, and indices are great for students. Furthermore, a textbook program for various levels in foreign language ensure that material builds on itself and is reinforced. It also saves on years of photocopies!
A good teacher will naturally supplement the textbook with additional resources, but a bad teacher isn’t going to become a better teacher by not using a textbook. Every teacher is different, and some excel with textbook use, and some use it for more of a resource. Well in college, there is a price to pay for that second type of teacher. In organic chemistry, I had to pay for a $130 textbook that was required and never once did I find the “resource” helpful. The teacher didn’t use it at all, so why did we have to buy it? But that doesn’t mean that the teacher that makes great use out of it should be asked not to use it as their main source of material.
Ok, my blog is quickly becoming epic. Another reason why I don’t like blogging for myself (hey it works for others just not me!). But I do want to point out a few more things. The authors say textbooks contain too much material yet don’t focus enough on individual themes or events, such as Hiroshima in a global studies textbook. This doesn’t mean it’s a bad textbook. This is a GOOD textbook! It is up to the TEACHER to decide what is important for the class to learn, and then highlight those things with such activities as reflective essays. For example, what was the impact of Hiroshima on the future for nuclear weapons? Do you agree? One of my best classes ever was 8th grade social studies. I was in an honors class and we used an old high school textbook that I got to keep. Well it had hardly any pictures and was, as the authors might say, “hard to read” and “outdated”. We used that textbook thoroughly and it was supplemented by one of the best teachers ever. I don’t remember much of high school but I will always remember how in 8th grade we learned that World War II came about in a large part because of the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles, a president who fell ill and isolationist senators that kept the U.S. from entering the League of Nations, which fell apart without the support of our country. When Germany invaded Poland, there was no large force obligated to come in and stop them, and the situation quickly got out of hand.
Textbooks in and of themselves will not make for a better teacher or a better or worse learning experience. It is how the teacher works with the curriculum and textbook to maximize its potential for the benefit of the students.
Congratulations (and thanks!) to you if you are still reading this!
Hola, Audrey-
Thanks in large part to the help you gave me, I am able to participate in blogging, and because of your insightful blog, I thought I'd comment! It seems like we can all find fault with textbooks, and I think that may date back to our resentment at having to lug them back and forth from home to school when we were students! Now as teachers, we will all be responsible to a department and be committed to using a textbook in some way. If all students could do what you just did in outlining the D&Z Chapter we read for this week, no one would ever have anything to complain about. Kids would be able to pick out the useful information, retain it and we could all congratulate ourselves on a job well done.
Whether any of us are pro or con with a textbook's format, design or content, the truth is that we are obligated to use them in the classroom. If implemented correctly, we will find them as useful guides by which to steer our course (no pun intended!).
We all know people who think teaching is easy and that you can work for ten months, but get paid for twelve, have the summers off and when you're in class, just open a text book and read it. The good teachers know that lesson planning revolves around more than just one source of information. In our f. lang classrooms, what good would it be to teach language without culture? Grammar without pronunciation? Or reading skills without writing stategies? In the same vein, it will be no good to use textbooks without a thoughtful dose of other kinds of realia. I am not advocating using textbooks for kindling at the bonfire the night before Homecoming. They are necessary, they have just been relied on for far too long as the only source of information and it's time for teachers to deviate from the big old book, use a variety of materials in their presentation of their lesson plans and in doing so,demand critical thinking of their students.
I think it would certainly be hard to teach a foreign language class without the help of a textbook. I don't know how I would have gotten through any of my language classes without that as a resource!
Depending on the subject, textbook use is going to be different. Math textbooks are going to be used all the time. Science books probably won't be looked at very much. History books are dull (sorry History majors!), and Language Arts books are too bulky, full of stories that seem too long to keep our attention. Alright, I may be exaggerating a bit, but the point I'm trying to make is that you can't win--textbooks have a bad name, and it's up to us as teachers to make them a useful tool rather than a paper weight.
Audrey,
(Hey its Matt A. not to be confused with Matt C. or Matt M). You're approach to using a textbook as a guide I couldn't agree with more. As many in the class know, I have been flying for about five years now, and have come across a wide range of training materials. Within the industry, there are those that are simply better than others. One well respected company is Jeppesen. They have what they call Guided Flight Discovery. "How Does Guided Flight Discovery Work? If you're looking for state-of-the-art pilot training materials that are second to none, you've come to the right place. Jeppesen has developed the Guided Flight Discovery (GFD) Pilot Training System to provide outstanding instructional materials to the finest flight schools, colleges, and universities in the world. Guided Flight Discovery is totally different than other systems because its entire philosophy of pilot training is a departure from the conventional methods of the past. Rather than just teaching facts, GFD concentrates on an application-oriented approach to pilot training. The comprehensive and complete system emphasizes the why and how of aeronautical concepts when they are presented. As you progress through training, you'll find that the revolutionary GFD System leads you through essential aeronautical knowledge and exposes you to a wide variety of interesting and useful information which will enhance and expand your understanding of the world of aviation. Although each element of GFD may be used separately, using all of the individual components in a systems approach can maximize the effectiveness of the materials." (http://www.jeppesen.com) I think their approach would be similar to the belief you hold that textbooks should be supplemental aids in the classroom, but not relieve the individual or instructor from the task of filling in the holes. I completely agree that a good teacher needs to know what to include and what to add or remove as appropriate. The key is to instill in the students the ability to see the holes, and be able to fill in the gaps on their own. You'll never learn to fly using just a textbook. What does this mean about reliance on textbooks in the classroom as the sole medium of education?
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Audrey-
I really like how you mention that the teacher can be the greatest supplement to the textbook. I couldn't agree with that more! I believe that textbooks can be very helpful in the classroom, depending on how the teacher uses it of course. Personally, I have not had a great experience with textbooks in the past. I believe this is largely due to the lack of the instructor as a supplement to the text.
The only textbook that I remember actually enjoying both inside and out of class was my Spanish textbook. It was very helpful, colorful, and most importantly, the teacher used it efficiently.