I finally talked to a teacher who said textbooks are basically useless now

I was at a friend's house last week and his sister, who teaches high school history in Phoenix, said something that stuck with me. She told me, 'I haven't opened the district textbook in two years. The kids find it boring and the info is already out of date.' She showed me her class page, which is just a list of links to free museum websites, YouTube channels run by professors, and digital archives. It made me think, why are schools still spending thousands on those big books if the teachers themselves aren't even using them? I always figured they were a core part of the lesson plan. But if a working teacher says they're dead weight, maybe the whole system needs a rethink. What do you all use if you're trying to learn something new online, do you even look for textbook-like stuff anymore?

2 comments

2 Comments

river_jones5d ago

Honestly, she's not wrong. The textbook in my room is a doorstop, lol. The chapters on the internet are from like 2010, it's useless. I pull everything from places like the National Archives doc site or that YouTube channel Crash Course. The kids actually pay attention to a good video. The books are crazy expensive too, it's such a waste of budget that could go to tech or other stuff.

viola1715d ago

Right? @river_jones, my textbook still calls Wikipedia "the online encyclopedia anyone can edit" like it's breaking news.