Textbooks for schools, problems of price but also poor quality

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.