If teachers go above and beyond the text to broaden ways of thinking around the text - find key words that provide clues to answers rather than giving the answers - students get involved at a deeper level. Teachers may want to consider enabling children to process the content and respond to it, discuss, summarise and frame questions for themselves. When a child asks what is the use of Pythagoras’ theorem, can we help them make meaningful connections to real-life phenomena? That is where the role of the teacher is paramount. If they are able to relate to what they learn, retention and assessment become easier. Children like to make meaning from the text that they see in front of them. The skill never lies in the tool but the person using it.Ĭleverly designed textbooks can cater to mixed abilities through tasks with varying levels of difficulty provide optional challenges and choices to students to stretch their capabilities assess at regular intervals rather than pile on a bulk of chapters for biannual examinations and help teachers overcome students’ difficulties by using teaching guides to plan their work. However, digital resources can provide a wealth of knowledge and direction to teachers, particularly those who do not have a formal background in education and can use digital media to supplement the subject knowledge provided by textbooks. The value of digital resources, as things stand today, pales in comparison to the use of textbooks in the classroom. No matter how fast our digital resources evolve, it will take decades before they can become accessible to every child in every classroom, like a textbook is. Yet, textbooks were always at the centre of teaching and learning and will remain so. Skilled teachers do not depend on the textbook: they use it as a tool like so many other resources we have today. They are also able to answer ‘out-of-the-box’ questions, challenge students way beyond the immediate requirements of a checklist, and set expectations that drive motivation and talent to nurture excellence. They are subject specialists able to use the textbook like a board game, going back and forth strategically, keeping in view the holistic aims of the curriculum. Teachers who leave an imprint on students’ memory and enrich their school experience are those who know far more than the textbook can offer. Textbooks are meant to be used for content and to chase targets which enable us to assess pupils in examinations, but they cannot be used without the expertise of an educator who can bring far more into the classroom experience than simply the content of the textbook. A hammer is useless if not in the hands of a competent carpenter.
The skill never lies in the tool, but in the person using it. No matter what the curriculum, a textbook is a tool that requires mediation by the teacher. SOMEONE once said, “The best thing about books is that sometimes they have pictures.” While this may not be a clever way to judge a textbook, it represents the need for a child-friendly layout - a learning package that creates interest rather than resistance.
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