Innovative teachers don't need no stinkin' textbooks
Filed under: College
Over the past 20 years, textbook prices have risen about twice as fast as inflation and, when added to the soaring cost of college, that places a heavy burden on many students.The USA Today recently reported on Oceanography professor Bob Stewart of Texas A&M who, in a display of altruism and character, refused to work with a publisher on his book Introduction to Physical Oceanography. It's distributed online for free, and it's also being used in China by students who are looking to learn oceanography and English. Dr. Stewart called the book his "gift. . . to the students of the world."When I was in seventh and eighth grade, I attended a Waldorf School where teachers, gasp, teach without the benefit of textbooks. Instead, they had to put together their own material and, make sure you're sitting down, do research! How did this work out? I can only speak from my experience, but I believe that creating lesson plans without textbooks requires teachers to be creative and that that, in turn, rubs off on students, resulting in increased class participation, greater learning, and more enthusiasm. Textbooks encourage teachers to be lazy, and you can bet that inspires the same in students.
Some people believe that open-source textbooks and/or professors combining resources from many different websites are the wave of the future at the college level, and I have to agree. With the wealth of resources available on the internet, and the ease with which professors can communicate with students online, there really is no reason for most college classes to require students to shell out for textbooks that cost $80-$200. Let the professors do their jobs and pull together material from a wide variety of sources, and pass the savings on to students. This is especially true of general education classes: the idea of a legal studies major having to spend $80 on a nutrition textbook (as I did) is obscene. For budget-conscious students attending community colleges, textbook costs can increase the cost of an education by a huge percentage, and that's a problem that education professionals need to look at closely and find solutions to.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
7-24-2008 @ 12:45PM
Brie said...
I absolutely agree!
Learning for the sake of learning is going nowhere,
The present system of education is turning out graduates too focused on the bottom line and worse of all lost generations of those who couldn't cut it!
Teaching without the rigidity of textbooks would let everbody in on the chance for sucess and future contribution!
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7-24-2008 @ 1:59PM
Jan Streib said...
As a veteran teacher who had no textbooks during the 80's school funding crisis I can address this issue. I agree that textbooks can be a lazy way of doing lesson plans but to just say all of them should be shoved overboard is immature. What makes you think someone should gather copyrighted materials to distribute for free? Didn't the author have to spend valuable time and resources to collect the material for the book. Doesn't it make sense that using a textbook written with a professional's expertise and knowledge would be better than having someone stand in front of a class and give second hand information that may be interpreted wrongly? I did a fine job of teaching with out textbooks, it was called whole language. But, and this is a a big but, (no pun, lol) I knew my stuff, which lesson to combine with which skill, etc. The newbie teacher next door didn't teach contractions or phonetic combinations. She never had a class in it. But she could read a big book and hand out dittos. See what I mean? Expert teachers are few and far between. But average, good enough teachers are every where. They need textbooks. Or find more money to pay experts, oh wait they won't teach cause they're busy writing textbooks so others can teach. Hmmmm.
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7-25-2008 @ 10:30AM
Lynne said...
As another veteran teacher, ditto to Jan's comments.
I have myself created curriculum on my own quite often. It makes learning more exciting and allows opportunities for students to take the initiative in their quest for knowledge.
However, I try to use our textbooks as resources, because students do need to know how to use them. They are helpful in ensuring that there is a general pool of knowledge and skills which has been standardized and verified, so that less experienced and less driven teachers will be able to competently and accurately dispense knowledge to students.
And with the NCLB, testing , and standards, most teachers need something to anchor and standardize their delivery. If not textbooks, school systems will need to provide access to alternative "approved and recommended" resources. Otherwise, curriculum becomes fragmented and its integrity questionable in the hands of the inexperienced, or those who do have the extra time required for planning and teaching without textbooks.
7-24-2008 @ 3:21PM
LINDA said...
OH PLEASE..GIVE ME A BOOK AND I DON'T NEED THE TEACHER. I SAY THIS NOT TO DENEGRATE ANY TEACHER, BUT A KID THAT CAN READ AND COMPREHEND CAN OPEN ANY DOOR.
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7-24-2008 @ 9:54PM
awed said...
I teach middle school and except for literature anthologies, I tell my students that text books are merely reference books. Considering that most children I teach are reading 2 years or more below grade level, if I want them to learn, I need to research to make the topic or skill interactive. If I say open your text, read these pages and answer the questions at the end of the chapter, I am sure to lose 1/2 the class. I'd much rather that the whole class learns. The internet makes teaching so much more current than a textbook.
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