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SeaStar
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I ran across an interesting point of view last week about textbooks.
In general, I am not a big textbook fan: so many of them are dry and boring. I prefer the "living books approach", as do many if us here.
However, an interesting point was made, and I cannot ignore it.
Many people who succeed in the world today are autodidacts- self taught. And while they use a variety of techniques to teach themselves ( Youtube, internet, etc), one of the main standbys is textbooks.
Case in point was learning computer skills. Computers are fairly new, and there are no delightful living books from years ago (or even from now) to help learn about them. If you want to learn hard core programming (or whatever) your best bet is a textbook.
So, are we doing our kids a disservice by not teaching them how to approach and learn from traditional textbooks?
Now, I am not going to give up on the CM approach; I believe there is much merit in living books, plus we love them. However, I can't stop thinking about this point; it does seem to make sense to me.
I know that moderation in everything is usually the best approach, but I thought I would bring the discussion here... especially for the moms with older kids who have gone out into the world (college, jobs, etc).
What is your opinion? Is textbook navigation in some form a necessary skill to learn?
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Melinda, mom to ds ('02) and dd ('04)
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CrunchyMom
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Is navigating a textbook really so different from navigating any other book? We are autodidacts and use books all the time to learn things here. My husband has tons of Home Improvement books, I have lots of gardening and cook books, etc... There are even books on computer programming that aren't textbooks, per se, and even many books used in college courses are those written by a single author who is passionate about the subject rather than by committee to makes sure a standardized list of state required topics are covered.
I am just not convinced that a textbook is A) such a unique form of book that an autodidact couldn't teach themselves how to use it, and B) that autodidacts really utilize "textbooks" more than other types of books.
A textbook can be a useful tool, organizing complex subjects and synthesizing the information in a way that it is easy found and referenced. But I'm not really worried that a child with good reading comprehension skills and exposure to other books wouldn't be able to use one when the need arises for lack of practice.
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Lindsay
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: July 03 2015 at 11:13am | IP Logged
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Also, textbooks for general learning are often dry with little depth.. too much information to cover in say world history to get it all between only 2 covers. While a book on a computer programming is specific enough to gain the depth that we're seeking in other ways for general education.
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Jodie, wife to Dave
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: July 03 2015 at 11:14am | IP Logged
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So rather than teaching our children not to use textbooks you can think of it as teaching our children to use books with depth on whatever subject, sometimes that might be textbooks.
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Jodie, wife to Dave
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ekbell
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While I've had textbooks which were enjoyable enough to reread, I've found that as autodidacts we rarely buy textbooks (books by academics, yes -textbooks no) if only due to the fact that textbooks tend to be both expensive as well as dry.
What we do buy (hours and hours and hours worth) are Teaching Company courses which are mostly college level lectures from well regarded professors.
To tell the truth, I think that learning from lectures would have been (if not for The Teaching Company) a greater adjustment then learning from textbooks. We do a lot of educational reading but I've never done formal lectures.
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SallyT
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Ditto what everyone else has said -- a good reader, able to navigate challenging reading, is a person positioned to be an autodidact. The best thing you can do for a high-school student, probably, is have them read Mortimer Adler's How to Read a Book. Then they can read and pull what's important from ANY book.
And I would agree that learning to learn from lectures is probably a much steeper curve -- that's one of the reasons why I use Teaching Company/Great Courses audio (NOT DVD) as part of our high school.
Sally
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SeaStar
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| Posted: July 03 2015 at 5:58pm | IP Logged
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Why not the dvd, Sally? Just curious. Is the dvd more than just a person giving a lecture?
These are all great points, and I admit I have also been thinking about the skill of taking notes from a lecturer. My son is a huge auditory learner, and I have read that a true auditory learner may not even need to take notes if he cultivates that habit of attention. However, dd is the opposite and would benefit from learning to take notes.
I suppose there are textbooks and then there are textbooks. There is nothing to kill the joy of learning more than a bad one, but I think some can be quite good.
One of the arguments I have seen for textbooks is that, if you use one, when you have finished the textbook you can be assured that you have covered a subject thoroughly. Yeah, well, I can't say I agree with that one.
OTOH, I used the Simply Charlotte Mason history program for a semester (Early Modern Times), and I was a little surprised about the lack of depth in that course. The spine was enjoyable and living, but very light on detail for any given period, and the books for independent reading, while wonderful books, didn't give detail over a broad period. Ex. You aren't going to learn a lot about the American Revolution by reading Carry On, Mr. Bowditch. I love that book, but I think the program would have been much meatier with a more detailed spine.
Ideally, I would like my kids to be able to pick up any book and evaluate it on its own merits. But there are fields- especially medicine- which could just be called TextBooks R Us because of the huge volume of material that is necessary to learn.
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Melinda, mom to ds ('02) and dd ('04)
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JodieLyn
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For some people taking notes is actually detrimental to learning from a lecture. Yes people in general will learn more if you have 2 modes of input.. listening and writing, but there are some of us out there that when writing out information, can't also listen and so miss large chunks of a lecture. I'm not saying no notes at all but it's better to listen attentively and hear the whole thing than write so much that you have large gaps.
And ladies, you have a built in lecture at least once a week during Mass  sure it's not quite the same as an hour long lecture in college, but especially for starting out.. the skills for listening to the readings and homilies and discussing it afterward are right there ready to be used. Plus they'll have also learned attentiveness during Mass. Win-win
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Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
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CrunchyMom
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I think the reason that taking notes during a lecture is helpful is because you are forced to synthesize the material in various ways because you can't possibly write everything down. This is why, now that they've done the studies, some colleges are encouraging students not to take notes on laptops because they've found that handwriting notes is much more effective.
In this respect, taking notes is really an art and a skill and one that it would be beneficial to practice.
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Lindsay
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[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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MarilynW
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CrunchyMom wrote:
In this respect, taking notes is really an art and a skill and one that it would be beneficial to practice. |
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I SO agree. And it is something I am trying to get my high school twins to learn. I might start a thread about note taking.My oldest dd set up her own system of note taking in high school which she still uses as a junior in college. My boys don't like to take notes, and it on my list to work on for Grade 11.
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MarilynW
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I think textbooks are good (and necessary?) for certain subjects. Often old textbooks are our modern day living books! I don't like dry, boring, politically correct, historically incorrect textbooks, but there are many good textbooks. A lot of classics can come across as dry and boring too - depending on the stage of development of the student - eg my high schoolers just finished City of God - and I think after that they will find next year's physics textbook really easy!!
Actually this thread is interesting - after 12 years of homeschooling I have changed some of my methods and thoughts. Still aim for Charlotte Mason and Classical - but I have come to see that some kids do well with textbooks and (yes - workbooks too!!!)
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JennGM
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I guess I need a definition of traditional textbook, as books vary in the subjects, writing and approach.
My boys don't mind how-to books or drier instructional books; they do well in teaching themselves how to do something or scientific interests.
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CrunchyMom
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JennGM wrote:
I guess I need a definition of traditional textbook, as books vary in the subjects, writing and approach.
My boys don't mind how-to books or drier instructional books; they do well in teaching themselves how to do something or scientific interests. |
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Lindsay
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SallyT
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Re audio vs DVD -- to make it less like watching tv. We do use video a good bit, but I think there's some merit to learning to process something that's not visually stimulating (whether you are or are not naturally an auditory learner). I know in real life you'd be watching a lecturer, but in teaching people to deal with lectures (which in real life can also be pretty no-frills), I want to minimize the "entertainment" aspect of the experience, which tends to switch the mind into "passive" mode. In other words, I'm interested in active listening, with note-taking/synthesis going on.
Jodie, I think you're right about note-taking as a possible distraction from listening, though it does become a survival skill in college. Everyone in my daughter's classes, especially in history, wanted to borrow her notes to study for exams, because she always took really good ones (and apparently her friends didn't -- and also didn't have good notes to study at exam time?). I do think students need to figure out *how* best to record, process, and synthesize information delivered in a lecture, but I'm not sure that I would consider not taking notes an option.
Marilyn is right that many of our "living" books are old textbooks -- though the ones we've used have, largely, been more narrative and like a story than contemporary textbooks: fewer visuals, information not "boiled down" or arranged into bytes or pre-synthesized. In history, particularly, this is important to me -- not that I believe that there's any such thing as a "neutral" viewpoint, but I prefer an emphasis on telling the *story* of history, rather than either offering disconnected "bytes" of information OR an emphasis on graphics that pre-arrange and pre-connect ideas.
For science I'm more open to a textbook approach -- we use that CHC All Creatures Great and Small for life science, for example, quite happily. But I still want room to read Fabre, Lorenz, and other science writers (and mostly use the textbook as a framework).
And I have used textbooks for high-school literature, just because they have a lot of what I want in one place (but we don't use any of the stupid filler that turns the Glencoe American Literature text, for example, into a total doorstop). Here I do depart a little from a pure CM approach, because while I think everyone needs to read *some* Ralph Waldo Emerson to be educated, I don't think a high-schooler needs to read *all* of what my college AmLit professor always referred to as "Waldo Emerson's Little Book Called Nature." I don't mind "snippets" of *some* things, to introduce a student to a writer's thought and rhetorical style without having to live with said writer's thought and rhetorical style for weeks or months on end, which would get pretty intolerable pretty fast.
And I do prefer to have some kind of good, detailed spine text for history, especially for middle school and up. What Melinda says about the lack of detail in the course she used is a concern -- I want my kids to know *what happened* in a given area of history, in a big-picture kind of way, especially as they get older. But I really have not liked any contemporary history textbooks I've seen, including the Catholic Textbook Project ones, though they're about as well done as it gets. It may not be rational, but we were all totally allergic to them.
Sally
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JodieLyn
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I did try and take notes all through school. I think it was the speed of the lectures in college that made me make the decision that less note-taking was better in some cases. I still would write down occasional things but less taking notes through-out the lecture.
It really depends on the topic and the speed and how closely the lectures would follow the books etc.
I just wanted to point it out as a valid choice. Not just not doing it.. but making the choice to give full attention to a lecture and write down occasional things (especially if the instructor writes it on the board) vs taking notes and losing sections of the lecture.
It should be an educated choice that it can work for a particular person, not just, well if you don't want to take notes, you just need to pay close attention.
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Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
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SallyT
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Good point, and thanks for the good clarification. I think you're right that every student needs to find a note-taking style/approach that works, and that can be different for different kinds of learners.
Sally
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SeaStar
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I'm hearing from my professor friends that the world of college, and especially professional school (medicine, grad school, etc), has really changed.
One friend in particular told me that only 25% of the students even bother to come to class at his school, and then most of them are busy with their phones during the lectures. As a professor, he has to record his classes and have them available on line. He also has to provide written notes (not sure in how much detail- but still!) for the students.
He says his students really have to be spoon fed and have issues with critical thinking. In addition, some students are allowed extra time for exams and others are permitted to take their exams privately, in a faculty office. He says times (at least on the professional school level) have really changed. Juniors and seniors are going into the clinics and are not able to recognize their classmates because they have never been to class. I can't even imagine this.
So, I guess if you are not a natural note taker there is hope for you 
I wonder, too, if the same thing is happening (or to such an extreme) on the undergrad level.
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Melinda, mom to ds ('02) and dd ('04)
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MaryM
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Was recently talking with Mary Daly (of Ye Hedge School) as she will be speaking at our conference next week. We were talking about teaching science. She doesn't like textbooks for science. Says trade books are the best way to enter into science topics. That the purpose of science education is to help us understand our place in the universe and feel at home in it.
In googling just found that the National Science Teachers Association even has a listing of "Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K–12" each year. It looks like a great resource and glad to see NSTA recognize this idea of trade books as important for learning science.
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jawgee
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MaryM wrote:
Was recently talking with Mary Daly (of Ye Hedge School) as she will be speaking at our conference next week. We were talking about teaching science. She doesn't like textbooks for science. Says trade books are the best way to enter into science topics. That the purpose of science education is to help us understand our place in the universe and feel at home in it.
In googling just found that the National Science Teachers Association even has a listing of "Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K–12" each year. It looks like a great resource and glad to see NSTA recognize this idea of trade books as important for learning science. |
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Fantastic list!! Thank you.
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SeaStar
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MaryM wrote:
Was recently talking with Mary Daly (of Ye Hedge School) as she will be speaking at our conference next week. We were talking about teaching science. She doesn't like textbooks for science. Says trade books are the best way to enter into science topics. That the purpose of science education is to help us understand our place in the universe and feel at home in it.
In googling just found that the National Science Teachers Association even has a listing of "Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K–12" each year. It looks like a great resource and glad to see NSTA recognize this idea of trade books as important for learning science. |
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Oh, my goodness, Mary- this lists going to keep me busy with library requests for a long time!
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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Melinda, mom to ds ('02) and dd ('04)
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4Real Forums : Living Learning
Topic: The dilemma of textbooks
