Wesley R. Elsberry
Posts: 4991
Joined: May 2002
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| Quote (Patrickarbuthnot @ Feb. 27 2010,00:38) | | Quote (blipey @ Mar. 05 2008,13:46) | J-Dog touched on something that is important, but not in the spotlight, regarding the IDC movement in public schools.
Textbooks publishers are in business like anyone else and they take their cues from a relatively small number of districts. The high population states of Texas, California, and New York have a disproportionate (as regards total number of school districts) influence on what textbooks get used, and therefore which ones get published.
These states maybe need a little more attention paid to them. |
I will repeat my convictions. To teach with textbooks does a disservice to the student. |
Teaching subjects badly is a disservice to the student.
Teaching from a textbook may be relatively worse than having someone who knows the subject well put together an engaging curriculum tailored to the grade level(s) to be taught.
What we get to argue over is just how badly we are willing for subjects to be taught.
There is the old one about what to call your kid's biology teacher if you haven't been introduced before... the answer is, "Coach".
In all too many places, schools are quite willing to have subjects taught by teachers who have no background in that subject at all. Asking those folks to present biology to students without the aid of a textbook is a recipe for certain disaster. So while in an ideal world where we would dig into our pockets and pay up to have our students taught by people who have earned their clues in the actual discipline being taught, textbooks might be sniffled at as stifling messengers of mediocrity, the fact is that we live in a world where skinflints will happily pay teachers on a scale lower than waste removal people if they can, and thus attract a workforce sometimes worthy of their compensation.
Or did I miss a different concern about textbooks that you have stated elsewhere?
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"You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." - Dorothy Parker
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