Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is not just nostalgia. Children need to be manipulating more objects than just computer mouses. Turning pages is fine motor skills practice. It is also physically grounding in the tangible physical world. It truly does engage different parts of our brains and bodies. And you can’t beat those beautiful color photos, eye-catching graphics, etc. My students really enjoy getting out our old set of gorgeous textbooks.

None of this is true. None.

I disagree. You seem very defensive though. Why, do you think?

Because I've taught children ages 2 to 80, pre K-12, college, continuing education, as well as graduate school, where I mentor teachers in all settings and have done so for almost 40 years. I've written tomes of curriculum for public and private schools, as well as charters for private schools. I am a reading specialist who has worked with every type of learning disability there is, and, within the last ten years, also have been very much involved with the autism community. I've written three books, too many articles to count today, and am a frequent guest on educational podcasts. I've taught Reading, English, English Literature, Humanities, History, Social Sciences, as well as three math disciplines interspersed throughout the years.

That is why I know what I am talking about. I understand what interactive synchronous and asynchronous/ dynamic curricula looks like, how it is used, how collaboration is used, and the role of a teacher. I uunderstand what a textbook is, having edited 20 of them and having used textbooks in entirety for almost 25 years. I've seen the progression of technology as it has developed since I was in the trenches all this time. I understand the uses and possibilities of many materials. I can honestly say that a child today can literally go through school without one textbook (!) and learn more than what was ever available in 1963, 1973, or 1993, or even 2003. Can a textbook have a place? Sure, but now only as a temporary reference. Literature? Sure, the physical book is lovely, all for physical books as ancillaries and motivators, but we can still buy more of those as ebooks if we want to maximize $$. But discipline-based textbooks...not really necessary and I can make a good case for their shortcomings, which are many. Think about how everyone gets their news today. Do you wait for your morning physical newspaper to find out what's going on in the world? No.

My advice- let educators decide how to teach. That's what we do. It's just not that simple or binary..textbooks or not. There's so much open source and commercial material online that you are not aware of or even how to use it.Why not spend some time looking into it before you come up with an opinion not in your purview?

Anonymous wrote:Agree, OP. My kids are in high school and this Is the bane of my existence. I think both their math and foreign language skills are substantially lower. Both tutors and I struggled to make sense of what they were supposed to be doing.

DCPS ES math teacher here. We use and have used Eureka books for the last six years. They are not textbooks but workbooks. So much is now online, printing the pages and photocopying packets is so much simpler.

I will concede however that historical analysis can sometimes best be taught by using primary source materials that may not be available in older textbooks. But these often are used to demonstrate different points of view regarding events in history. Agreed that we should be encouraging this type of critical thinking.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's complicated, but textbook publishing is kind of a boondoggle, they update textbooks every 3-4 years to get repeat sales, and the books are very expensive. In college or private school, students buy them directly. In public school, the school is supposed to purchase them. And of course students tend to lose books or destroy them, not like before, when we used to use same textbook for as kids 10 years prior, and everyone had to use book covers, and wasn't allowed to write on them.

But, like, the way that we present and assimilate information has changed too, so I'm not even sure textbooks are as useful as they used to be anyway.

Kind of like handwriting. I don't think it's ever really coming back in a way that it was taught before.

Well, a syllabus or something would be helpful. There's clearly an expectation of having parents assist, but how can we help if we don't know what's being taught? Additionaly, this isn't awesome for younger kids or ADHD kids who struggle to organize all the random parts that come their way.

PS- I HATE quizlet.

As for a syllabus, BASIS did give out a syllabus for each subject my DD has in 5th grade. She has no textbooks, just sheets of paper and packets she is completing and learning from.

Also I don’t think anyone mentioned sitting and copying facts. READING facts, however, can be very useful, along with more experiential modes of learning. Seems to me that we are lacking a common set of shared facts in a few areas these days. While we may have different beliefs, it doesn’t change the fact that the earth revolves around the sun. This is useful information that impacts our daily lives. We can do hands-on activities to prove it for ourselves, but it’s also useful to read up on Copernicus, the Incas and the Mayans, etc. And way more engaging to read from a book with color photos than a barely-legible black and white photocopy.

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know if you any of you have met your kids but they’re constantly on their phones, on YouTube and Snapchat and their Nintendo switches. YOU bought them these devices! And then you’re surprised that the school can’t hold their attention by asking them to turn to page 497 of their textbook and read about imperialism? What do you think happens if we ask students to sit and copy facts in 2022? It isn’t how we present or digest information anymore. Very few jobs will require them to use skills like that, either. In college and in graduate school we used very few old school textbooks. It was primarily digital resources, and on the odd occasion the professor would run off copies of a few pages of a textbook. You are living in the past.

If you want to buy your child textbooks, go for it. Similar to asking students to copy a sentence 100 times, wear a dunce cap and stare at the wall, or memorize poetry, textbooks are not part of modern pedagogy.

I didn’t hear anyone say that textbooks couldn’t hold students attention. In fact, I read posters saying just the opposite. I’m very much living in the present, but there are some things I’d prefer weren’t happening. That isn’t living in the past. I’m a teacher by the way and it is not true that textbooks aren’t part of modern pedagogy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a high school science teacher. Science instruction has moved away from rote memorization of science facts and more into science skills, analysis and critical thinking. I have access to textbooks but choose not to use them (both AP level and freshman level). Instead I give my students diagrams to analyze. Real data to analyze. Labs to complete and analyze. Modeling projects where they need to wrestle with the content and make sense of it as they go. It often takes a while to convince students that the goal is not memorization. No publishers textbook I’ve had access to does any justice to aligning well with the rewritten AP science curriculum or NGSS. They claim to but don’t. Maybe I’ve just never had access to one’s that do. I can say in a heartbeat I’d rather have $8000 dollars in lab equipment as opposed to 80 $100 textbooks for my students to occasionally use.

Re-read what you wrote and realize how ridiculous it is. Unless you memorize some science facts you can’t really analyze. I couldn’t it believe when my 9th grader started bringing home assignments that said - “use a credible internet source to find…” Or has work that is all about the process and it doesn’t matter if it is right it wrong as long as they follow the process. There is basic scientific information everyone should memorize to be an informed citizen. You can memorize first then use real data to analyze.

I have reread what I wrote and stand by it. Please let me know what biology facts must be memorized before a student can start to understand a biology concept. For example it is critically important for students to learn about evolution. But they retain the understanding much better if they start out simulating/modeling the process with a hands on activity. Then look at the data and develop an explanation of what is happening. Then look at real world data and apply the simulation developed understanding to the real world data. They learn the vocabulary and facts in context.

Maybe I’m an outlier as a teacher. I deeply know my content. I enjoy curriculum development. I spend far more hours than I should developing my class materials. I teach students how to keep their work organized and reinforce organization. I teach students how to study from their resources and test them in a way that is aligned to what they are learning. I will say a textbook might be needed for a teacher/class that is less organized or experienced. When I taught AP psych (a memorization heavy test) with less expertise in that field than bio the AP aligned textbook was a lifesaver for me and my students. Each year I relied on the textbook less as I developed a deeper understanding of the content and crafted engaging materials for the students. My textbook based class in the early years wasn’t bad. The class did get better though in later years.

Textbooks aren’t good or bad. There are many ways of learning. But there is a cost trade off that at least for me is definitely not worthwhile for my teaching.

I don’t know if you any of you have met your kids but they’re constantly on their phones, on YouTube and Snapchat and their Nintendo switches. YOU bought them these devices! And then you’re surprised that the school can’t hold their attention by asking them to turn to page 497 of their textbook and read about imperialism? What do you think happens if we ask students to sit and copy facts in 2022? It isn’t how we present or digest information anymore. Very few jobs will require them to use skills like that, either. In college and in graduate school we used very few old school textbooks. It was primarily digital resources, and on the odd occasion the professor would run off copies of a few pages of a textbook. You are living in the past.

If you want to buy your child textbooks, go for it. Similar to asking students to copy a sentence 100 times, wear a dunce cap and stare at the wall, or memorize poetry, textbooks are not part of modern pedagogy.

Trapper Keepers! They’re the best!

Anonymous wrote:If you're not going to have textbooks, please give the kids instruction in how to manage all the handouts. And give them something like a clear syllabus that lays out what they have already covered and shows what is ahead.

The kids I tutor act like their schoolwork is trash because it comes home on crumpled papers. I have to spend so much more time teaching them organizational strategies before we can even make headway on the math. Many teachers I talk to bemoan the lack of books, especially the ones who have kids of their own at home!

I hear Trapper Keepers are back.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is not just nostalgia. Children need to be manipulating more objects than just computer mouses. Turning pages is fine motor skills practice. It is also physically grounding in the tangible physical world. It truly does engage different parts of our brains and bodies. And you can’t beat those beautiful color photos, eye-catching graphics, etc. My students really enjoy getting out our old set of gorgeous textbooks.

None of this is true. None.

I disagree. You seem very defensive though. Why, do you think?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm an English teacher. The texts (short stories, poems, essays) that appear in textbooks don't generally appeal to my students. I get to know them and their interests and change out our readings year-to-year.

Two years ago, my sophomores were really in to soccer. You bet that as often as I could, I found soccer related texts. Some I created myself! But that soccer year involved more learning in a good chunk of students than would have occurred if I went with the per-selected stories.

And what about the others? I would have hated being in your class during soccer-year.

Me too! Yuck

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is not just nostalgia. Children need to be manipulating more objects than just computer mouses. Turning pages is fine motor skills practice. It is also physically grounding in the tangible physical world. It truly does engage different parts of our brains and bodies. And you can’t beat those beautiful color photos, eye-catching graphics, etc. My students really enjoy getting out our old set of gorgeous textbooks.

None of this is true. None.

Your kid can “manipulate more objects” by turning the pages of novels you give them to read at home.

It seems like we have a difference of opinion. As a teacher, I value and honor that. So maybe some of both types of learning would be healthy….which is what I do. And I love the idea that kids are reading actual novels at home! In my experience though, most are spending a lot more of their time on social media and online homework. - Teacher who thought her grandma was very wise

If you're not going to have textbooks, please give the kids instruction in how to manage all the handouts. And give them something like a clear syllabus that lays out what they have already covered and shows what is ahead.

The kids I tutor act like their schoolwork is trash because it comes home on crumpled papers. I have to spend so much more time teaching them organizational strategies before we can even make headway on the math. Many teachers I talk to bemoan the lack of books, especially the ones who have kids of their own at home!

Just like DCUM scream about something not being the way you want it to be and demand change (most likely back to the good ol days of your childhood) instead of understanding why things are or how education evolved.

I’m sure this is WTUs fault too