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ekbell
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| Posted: July 08 2015 at 11:52am | IP Logged
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SeaStar wrote:
Trade books are a whole new category 
How would we define these? Shorter books focusing on one topic?
I wonder if there are "trade books" for other subjects besides science...
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My Google search indicates that trade books are simply books intended for the general public which means that there are trade books for pretty much any subject imaginable.
Books I've read in the last few months have had topics ranging from the history of plant breeding to am autobiography of Beatrix Potter to the history of the early Church - all marketed to the general public.
While I don't believe in simply ruling out textbooks (my preferred elementary introduction to Canadian history happen to be OOP textbooks and a well loved poetry book of mine was also written for the classroom) I do believe that trade books and the like can be enough for interest based learning and elementary and secondary education.
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Erin
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| Posted: July 08 2015 at 2:57pm | IP Logged
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ekbell wrote:
| While I don't believe in simply ruling out textbooks (my preferred elementary introduction to Canadian history happen to be OOP textbooks and a well loved poetry book of mine was also written for the classroom) |
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The fact that your loved textbook was OOP captured my interest. In fact I have an old textbook written by 'Miss Corners on the History of Ireland' that I love too. I propose that older textbooks were written with a far more interesting style than modern textbooks.
Not certain how dates line up for America but here in Australia any textbooks written prior to 1964 or thereabouts are excellent, interesting and meaty. These books were all written by individuals. After the early 60s textbooks were written by committees and sadly that is when they began to decline to their current blandness.
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SeaStar
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| Posted: July 08 2015 at 3:14pm | IP Logged
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I agree with Erin- older textbooks can be very wonderful. But once you hit the 1970's... whoa   
Remember the old ccd texts with all the pictures of the kids in 70's fashions? Yikes- I remember being scared by those when I was in 4th grade
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SallyT
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| Posted: July 08 2015 at 8:22pm | IP Logged
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I always think about that line from Voyage of the Dawn Treader, about Eustace's favorite books, which feature "pictures of fat foreign children doing exercises in model schools."
Or at least, when I read that line, the 1970s version of a mental picture of that picture flashed immediately into my mind.
Sally
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stellamaris
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| Posted: July 09 2015 at 11:16am | IP Logged
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I think it is important to distinguish between more "inspirational" subjects, such as literature, poetry, history, and more "disciplinary" subjects, such as mathematics or grammar. My approach to the inspirational subjects is living books--actually reading the literature, using a book of poems published by the original author, or incorporating historical fiction or interesting documentary-style works for history. Personally, I prefer a textbook for disciplinary subjects. Jen asked about the definition of a textbook, and I would suggest that the essence of a textbook is a very streamlined presentation of just the facts, ma'am. Many "textbooks" written in recent years do not, IMHO, meet this definition and are more propaganda pieces than factual works. A good textbook, however, can help learning to be efficient, if not rich. And sometimes efficient is what you want!
So we definitely use textbooks for grammar and mathematics. We use a history textbook as a spine for history, and then we use science textbooks or living books or a combination of both depending on what we are covering in science. Since I have an engineering degree myself, perhaps I just can't even imagine teaching subjects such as math or chemistry out of living books only, at least in the upper grades. I think it would be a very inefficient way to cover the material in depth. For my more technical students, I have used very technical materials such as Saxon Physics. Having said that, for my students who were not interested in technical degrees, living books, experiments, and a basic overview were perfect.
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SallyT
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I like that CM division of subjects, Caroline. And yes, we use textbooks for grammar (albeit a really old one for grammar), math, science, etc. Most of those subjects are the ones that fall under the designation of "taught by an expert," rather than by living books themselves -- and when you yourself are not the expert, where you gonna turn?
But I do think what you've said about many contemporary textbooks is really important. Even the literature textbook I've used for our US year is, frankly, mostly awful -- it just happens also to contain the literature I want us to read. I would say that probably the most useful skill for reading a contemporary textbook is the ability to get past the junk to whatever is factual and truthful. Whether and when that's worth somebody's time is another question . . . but then discerning that something is propaganda, rather than information, is never not a useful skill!
Sally
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Erin
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| Posted: July 09 2015 at 3:15pm | IP Logged
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Great distinctions Caroline, I just never knew the words to define.
Like Sally we use an old text for grammar (early 60s) and it is fascinating and the children love to do grammar. The correct text makes all the difference
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stellamaris
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| Posted: July 09 2015 at 10:04pm | IP Logged
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SallyT wrote:
| Whether and when that's worth somebody's time is another question . . . but then discerning that something is propaganda, rather than information, is never not a useful skill! |
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I agree with you, Sally! Actually, teaching our children to recognize propaganda techniques is really important. I remember once having the younger children read an article about global warming that randomly included a sentence stating something like: "Last year 200,000 people were killed in a tsunami in SE Asia." It never really connected global warming and the tsunami, but by just making that statement in the middle of the article, it seemed to imply that global warming had caused that tsunami. Whatever the truth of climate change, it has nothing to do with that tsunami! The way the article was written left the impression that the two events were connected. I think the children were pretty intrigued to be able to identify that kind of propaganda technique, because they kept finding it in other articles after that !
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Caroline
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4Real Forums : Living Learning
Topic: The dilemma of textbooks
