Textbooks for schools, problems of price but also poor quality

Simon Marcus Gower, Jakarta

Nobody would question the importance and great value of books to the processes and tasks of learning and "becoming an educated person". Undoubtedly one of the most difficult and unfortunate of challenges for many people in Indonesia is the cost of books and, in many instances, the availability of good quality books. In this context it may, then, seem rather ironic and contrary to suggest that the demand for and provision of textbooks in schools can be creating difficulties; but it is possible to see this as being the case.

Costs of such books alone can prove problematic to many parents for whom the high price of textbooks can be burdensome and even painful financially. But quite often too the cost of such books itself is not the only financial consequence resulting from demands for textbooks to accompany school life. The cost of such books is quite consistently compounded by the "turnover" in use of such books.

Parents have been known to claim that the "shelf" or "useful" life of textbooks is too limited. In other words they consistently face the challenge of having to replace textbooks on a yearly basis. The textbook that was required for the last school year is deemed to be unacceptable and so no longer required for the new school year. Instead a new textbook is required.

Alongside of this kind of concern is the fear that these predetermined and requisite textbooks are to be supplied by specific suppliers who effectively enjoy a monopolistic control of the book supply process. In short a captive market is obliged to purchase these books whether or not they really can determine their educational value. School students are obliged to have the prescribed texts and any failure to be in possession of the prescribed texts is liable to be deemed, effectively, as leading to failure in school.

All of this revolves around the problem and concern that school life and study is to be premeditated around textbook ownership and study. This is, it is probably reasonable to cite, a rather old-fashioned notion and basis for school study. Certainly textbooks can and often will be a reasonable guide and source of learning but there is a danger that very prescriptive usage of textbooks can be preclusive of real learning and limiting in opening a student's mind to the world of learning.

Consistently the use of textbooks can and will fall into the category of merely leading students to the relatively limited knowledge that they need to "pass the test" at the end of the school year.

This condition extends to the role of the teacher in the classroom too. The teacher's own thinking and creativity can be limited by the use of a textbook. Quite often teachers may fall into the habit of using a textbook as the beginning, middle and end of their lesson planning. In essence the textbook becomes a manual (and a chore) that they may plod through in an uninspiring and extremely monotonous way.

The classroom that revolves around a teacher simply saying something like "Ok students, turn to page 33 and we will continue with the next exercise from the book" is hardly a classroom at all. If the classroom activity merely centers on the students going through the book, there is very little evidence to support classroom attendance as opposed to staying home, reading the book, doing any exercises and sending the efforts in for someone to score or assess.

Teachers can become so obsessed and dependent on their prescribed textbook that it becomes the entire basis of their teaching.

This kind of attitude creates a condition in which teachers are basically going through the motions of following the book out of a sense of being obliged to robotically expose the students to the contents of the book; in a real sense doing everything "by the book". This does create the predicament of teachers doing something that is widely recognized as being at best undesirable but most likely quite unwanted -- namely of "teaching the book and not teaching the students".

Textbooks, clearly, can lay out guidance and assistance to teachers and students alike but they should not be seen as the sole and ultimate prescription and description of knowledge in a given area of study. Learning should be expansive and exploratory and this requires that a variety of sources and resources for learning be utilized.

This kind of approach to learning and education was recognized by an American historian by the name of John Hope Franklin who proposed that "we must get beyond textbooks, go out into the bypaths and as yet unexplored depths of the wilderness and travel and explore and tell the world the glories of our journey." This highlights that textbooks have a part to play but they are indeed just a "part" of the learning process.

Books are an invaluable tool and asset to learning but within the context of a school they ought to be seen as one of a number of resources for learning and sources of exploration and discovery. The simple fact that students are attending a school setting based around classrooms with peers in attendance too has to highlight the potential for a large proportion of learning to take place through interactions.

Interactions may occur between classmates and between the students and the teacher but interaction can also occur with the environment generally and the immediate learning environment of the classroom. Children and small children in particular, have a propensity to copy what they see and interact with and respond to what they see. Even a simple poster can provide stimuli for developing learning.

If the only interaction that is occurring in the classroom is between the student and a textbook, then a very passive learning environment is dominating school life. Everybody, whether adult or child, has only a limited ability to concentrate for much more than twenty to thirty minutes and so inevitably endless concentration on textbooks is not likely to prove either productive or fulfilling.

The costs to parents of textbooks for schools, obviously, have to be carefully considered but we also must consider the costs of creating too great a degree of dependency on textbooks. Learning and understanding can come to us in a variety of ways and preclusive imposition of textbooks can impinge upon variety and stifle vitality in learning.

The writer is Executive Principal of the High/Scope Indonesia School. The views expressed above are personal.