Textbooks

It seems these days that teachers are increasingly becoming anti-textbook. Using a textbook as the foundation of your course is almost considered a bad thing. Never supplementing a textbook with outside materials (or materials from other textbooks) is also seen as average. This attitude is grounded in assumptions about the teaching profession, student learning, and the nature of textbooks themselves.

Learning should be more engaging! Students should be able to experience and interact with materials that bring about curiosity and the chance to solve meaningful problems. This is very unlikely to occur it the student's only interaction with the subject matter is 2-dimensional (in the pages of a textbook). Manipulatives, experiments, peer collaboration, service learning, field trips, technology... these need to be prominent in our classrooms. However, students also need a curriculum that is well organized, that allows them to read about the topic, see pictures, and access other relevant information all in one place, and that covers the scope of the subject. Textbooks can provide this foundation of organization. At the very least, they are usually written by a team of many individuals. A teacher usually works alone. The judgment of many provides advantages over the judgment of one.

We cannot deny the powerful purpose that textbooks serve. Our canon is so full of subjects and information that students are to learn that to ask each teacher to locate and produce her own materials to convey this content would be a nightmare. Textbooks are a way to level the playing field. Assuming that all teachers and students use the same textbook, they are all getting access to good information presented in a pedagogically sound way (in theory, at least). Of course, an excellent textbook cannot completely compensate for a sub-par teacher. Textbooks cannot completely "teacher-proof" our curriculum. Teachers get so tired of feeling boxed in by regulations, textbooks, testing, and many other mandates. I believe people who become teachers are generally well above average in creativity, as well as in their desire to help others and make the world a better place. Just like in any profession, workers are usually more satisfied when they have greater levels of autonomy and some flexibility to decide how they will approach their task. Requiring teachers to teach from a text can be very limiting upon the wonderfully creative ideas that teachers may have. Tying the hands of good teachers hurts our students too. Thus, good teachers should be allowed to bring their own ideas to a textbook, adapting and using it as they see fit.

However, there are many teachers who will abuse this freedom. Teachers without sound pedagogical understanding, who do not plan their curriculum well and waste time doing irrelevant and ill-suited activities cause policy makers to continue to restrict the freedoms of all teachers. Teachers like these, in my opinion, should receive appropriate PD to improve their practice, or should be required to follow a (good) prescribed curriculum with less room for deviation than better teachers have. Textbooks are not the enemy- they are part of the solution. Teachers who tout their own experience and expertise and thumb their noses at the textbooks, and yet do not produce strong learning gains in their classrooms, are the real problem. These teachers should not be able to disregard the textbooks, assuming the texts are good.

There are good and bad textbooks out there. Sadly, almost no textbooks undergo non-biased research and development by someone outside of the textbook publishing company. Thus, we have very little data on textbook curriculum effectiveness. A textbook should be grounded upon proven and solid research, peer evaluated and written by a team of subject matter and grade level experts, field tested, and should come with ancillary materials that assist the teacher with differentiation. It should also be accompanied by in depth, on going training by people with real teaching experience, not just sales representatives. If these things occur, textbooks are very powerful ways to improve education in this country.