Shelby Asked: Are textbooks a boon or a hindrance to the classroom?
As she probably suspected when she asked the question, there is no easy answer as textbooks can certainly be both. This oscillating difference is accounted for by two separate criteria: 1) Quality of the textbook 2) Treatment of the teacher towards said textbook.
1) Obviously some textbooks are more beneficial than others, and the quality of the textbook often accounts for their entire benefit. There is not a single traditional discipline that cannot profit from the presence of high caliber textbooks. This depends, of course, on how the textbook is employed...which brings me to 2.
2) When a textbook is a hindrance, as it occasionally is, it is typically due to the teacher rather than the book itself. Textbooks become detrimental when they are relied on nigh solely as the method for imparting knowledge. The textbook is a convenient excuse for the teacher to not diversify pedagogical practices. The answer to this is not just to rely on electronic resources as the school in Arizona did.
Some further notes: While it may be personal preference, I think there is a benefit to having a hard copy of text rather than reading it from the screen of a computer. Although, this having been said, there is an environmental boon to removing textbooks form the classroom, though this will often be offset by copious amounts of printing sources from the internet.
Question: Given that there is this ambivalence, how can the benefit from textbooks be optimized?
One way, of course, is to approach it skeptically. If students learn to challenge and question their textbooks, they'll be developing an intellectual virtue and life skill that's bigger than any textbook.
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