D&Z Chapters 3 and 4

After reading chapters 3 and 4 of Daniels and Zemelman, I can’t help but think to myself, “finally, teachers and other educators are starting to realize how complex textbooks are, and how frustrating it can be to rely on the text for information.” The authors describe textbooks as difficult, superficial, and sometimes inaccurate. I agree with this point. Personally, I have never enjoyed reading from textbooks. I often find that while my mind wanders… my eyes wander down the page. Once I snap back into reality, I have to reread the entire page because my mind did not process the text. So…to my fellow, future educators, I suggest putting less emphasis on textbooks. When our students go to college, the professors that are uneducated in this area will surely give them enough to read.

There were a couple of points that I wanted to comment on. First, was the idea of textbooks, and how many of them are often considered inaccurate. I found it astounding that one of the leading textbook publishers had 86,026 errors across its series of books. But, what I found even more interesting was this idea of how “smart teachers can make textbook errors useful (57).” I loved the story of Don Grossnickle. He took a textbook error and made it into a useful lesson about how the Bubonic Plague wasn’t actually spread by the bacteria of rats and fleas. According to Science News, it was actually caused by a viral hemorrhagic fever. As a biology major, this is something that I can implement in my own classroom. Science is always changing and there are constantly new breakthroughs. (And in a way, this lesson serves as a science and a history lesson!) So, I suppose when publishers make one of their many, many mistakes, us teachers can use these mistakes to our advantage. It definitely makes me question how much of the information I’ve read is actually accurate!

A second point I wanted to touch upon was the idea that textbooks are superficial. From reading the chapter, I realized that I have been a victim of textbook superficiality as a student. As a science teacher, I played the role they asked in chapter three. I thought I knew the answer to this question, seeing I am a biology major and these concepts have been drilled into our heads ever since middle school. But, I was wrong. I thought that the nutrients from the soil contributed to the tree’s mass. Based on my answer, I have learned that my education was textbook dependent. I’m sure I will learn about this in my plant class next semester, but I did not know that the mass came from the air. You know what they say… you learn something new every day!

One thing we can do to ensure our students don’t become victims of textbook dependency is to put less emphasis on textbooks. According to Daniels and Zemelman, “…textbooks continue to be overused, and should be supplemented generously or replaced with other reading materials where possible (53).” If we as teachers select material based on the needs/levels of our students, they will learn more. I think this is good advice, something we should be aware of as we continue on our journey to becoming teachers.

After reading this chapter, I have learned more about the type of teacher I will be in the future. I, for one, will put less emphasis on textbooks. After all, I have observed in classrooms focused heavily on supplemented materials (the students never actually opened the textbook and read from it). I found this to be an effective way of teaching, especially in the sciences. The students understood the material because they weren’t reading a bunch of scientific text, and they enjoyed learning in this manner. Science textbooks tend to be very difficult and dense. So, I hope to implement this strategy in the future. Until then, I will continue my textbook dependent studies to get to that point.