"RUN FROM THE TEXTBOOK!!"
Upon reading chapters five and six,
I am left with a feeling of uneasiness. The authors of “Subjects Matter”
address key issues with textbook implementation, which I am not sure I have
really thought about before. Chapter three specifically, addresses the idea of
capitalist motivation when selecting textbooks to be used. Daniels and Zemelman
compare the development of textbooks to the creation of sausages in a factory;
it is a dirty and disgusting process that we don’t think of when consuming the
product.
The idea
that textbooks are developed with the consumer market in mind comes as no
surprise, after all publishers need to make money right? What is surprising however, is that the
students that will be using these books are not
considered to be the consumer market. Instead, the market consists of
businessmen and women that decide how best to connect state standards to
curriculum. The market ultimately is the school-system, but what is the school
system without the students? It feels as though the education system is losing
its focus. We are so concerned about tracking data that we have forgotten about
the personal relationship to our students. Thus falling into a trap of locating
the “perfect magic textbook” that is all encompassing and solves all teacher problems.
According to this textbook, no such book exists.
I like the
idea of incorporating multiple texts such as articles and scholarly reviews
into the curriculum. I agree that when we rely so heavily on a single textbook,
we undoubtedly eliminate diverse perspectives and leave too much room for bias.
This makes me also wonder what information might be omitted from a textbook for
the sake of not discrediting the publisher or their investors. After all, if
information is published that might harm the success of a corporation, is that
corporation going to invest in the creation of that particular book? For
example, if a science book publishes that the trans fat found in a McDonalds
hamburger can be life threatening, this could decrease the sales of McDonalds
hamburgers. Do you really think McDonalds would then want to take part in
funding that textbook? By incorporating multiple sources of information into
curriculum, we are able to eliminate the chances that we are misinforming our
students based on bias textbooks.
Some of the
strategies found in chapter six seem to work well with this type of teaching.
Things like Jigsaw activities and Literature Circles can work well when
providing multiple avenues of information. Using Jigsawing as an example, if
each group has a different article about the holocaust, they can each discuss
their articles as individual groups and then present their information to the
class. This ensures that the entire class is learning of various perspectives
of the Holocaust without actually having to take the time to read each and
every article. This idea can be applied to literature circles as well. If each
literature circle has something different to read, they can each discuss their
material in their assigned roles and present out to the rest of the class. I
think the best thing about literature circles is that the students feel
invested through having their own responsibilities (ie. questioner, artist,
scene setter, etc.) to ensure the literature circle’s success.
Overall I
thought that these two chapters were very intriguing and eye opening. Through
learning of how textbooks are created, and the risk we run by not using them
effectively as resources like a dictionary and thesaurus, I feel that I will
create my curriculum in a more unique way. I must say though, isn’t it ironic
that we are learning all of this from a textbook?!
