Text Book Controversies

During my elementary, middle, and high school years I truly relied on my text books. They were my go to when I was not sure whether or not I understood the curriculum correctly. I think they are helpful for students because it is another source of information. As teachers, we are a single source for our students. We provide them with the knowledge they need to know for each subject, and we add on to what the text books are missing. Essentially though, students should be able to refer to their text books when they are unsure about an assignment question or are trying to remember something that was talked about in class. If this is not possible, I think it would be important to insure that students are taking good notes in class and/or that the teacher is issuing handouts. Another good reason for this is that text books can sometimes be confusing and throw out a lot of information at one time, which can be a lot for a student to take in and comprehend.

I don’t think that textbooks are completely useless and I, for one, enjoy them. There were times in my math class where my teacher would tell us that the book does it one way but it is easier to do it another way. Or she would tell us that the book does not explain it well enough. She always gave us her own notes to refer to, however, the book was still helpful at times and all of our homework assignments came from the book.

I think another reason some people do not like text books is because they don’t like the common core material that they follow, or teaching to a test. However, I think teachers can put their own little spin on their lessons. If we have to “teach to a test” then we might as well make it more enjoyable for us and our students. This gives us a way to be creative in our classrooms, and in return hopefully keep the students more engaged while teaching to the standards.

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