So I'm getting ready to go over my book notes to do this month's blog posts and realize that I never went back on and posted about chapter 2!
As I was reading back over my notes, I remembered thinking how Schmoker talked about the importance of creating a curriculum high in critical thinking, but yet meaningful to to the students. So many times I think it is easy for us to get caught up in wanting to teach things "we" think will be great, but it's important to remember to keep the students in mind when planning our lessons. When I think about applying this in my room, I think about how important it is that our students are learning/know how to use informational text. We need to have resources available to us that students find meaningful and want to critically evaluate. What are some expository resources you like to use in your classroom that you find students find meaningful to them?
And finally, the other piece that I found interesting was the part about how students are rarely reading or being taught how to read a textbook, which is causing students to lack the deep reading, writing, and inquiry that is required in college. I had never really thought about this, but as I read it I thought, "my students rarely use a textbook!" And then I thought back to my college days and how the textbooks were a major part of my classwork. If we are not teaching students to use them now, then how much harder will it be for them to succeed in using them later? When I think about when I was in elementary school, I remember having a textbook for everything, and I also don't remember not being able to navigate one when I started college. Does it really make a difference? I often wonder why we don't have math text books, and how much easier it would be for parents to help their child with things such as homework if they had the old school textbooks with examples at the beginning of each section. Something to think about I guess!
We went through a phase in education where it was common practice to dismiss text book use as antiquated. Even I, as a first year teacher, told the other teacher with years of experience that I did not like textbooks and did not want to use them. He patiently smiled and said that as long as I used the same vocabulary and grammar, he did not care whether I used it or not.
ReplyDeleteI spent hours and hours duplicating the information from the textbook to other formats that I "liked", but they did not have the richness that the textbook provided in terms of pictures etc, so I started using the textbook as a resource sometimes so kids could see the things that they were missing. Then a light bulb went on for me. The textbook had been created by teachers like me and had all of the things I needed, AND it was aligned to state standards. I did not need to "prove" that my content was aligned, I didn't have to "come up" with activities that hit all of the modalities. They were all right there, mocking me and my arrogance. I learned a hard lesson that year, and then became a book devotee. So much so, that when other teachers questioned the "creativity" of my textbook use, I held my ground, and here 18 years later, a guy named Schmoker has said that I was doing something right. I am vindicated! But I had to stick to my guns on what I believed logically for a long time. Teaching really does make sense, just don't let the flashy bells and whistles fool you.