NTT: Teaching strictly by the book

Nearly every teacher is required to use a textbook of some sort to teach their subject to students. This isn't much of a problem until you get to teachers who decide to teach using only the information in the book and not their own knowledge of the subject. These teachers will often have the students read parts of the chapter out loud or simply tell the students to read the book during the class period and do assignments related to the chapter. This can make the student think that the teacher doesn't know the subject they are teaching and can make the student think that the teacher is lazy.

Many teachers and students assume that the information contained within a textbook is accurate and this could be why some teachers choose to teach solely by the book. However, not all textbooks are accurate as James W. Loewen points out in his book "Lies my Teacher Told me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong". In the book, Loewen describes in detail how twelve of the most commonly used textbook for American history classes in high school inaccurately portray history and how none of those textbooks should be used to teach history because of how inaccurate they are. One of the books he talked about was "The American Pageant" a history textbook used for AP U.S. History classes across the nation. I have personal experience with this book and an AP teacher who decided to teach by the book instead of teaching AP U.S. History herself.

When I first signed up to take AP U.S. History I was expecting a class that would really challenge me and help me learn more about the history of the United States. The first day of APUSH my classmates and I were given a syllabus which told us what chapter we would be going over each week until the AP exam, what assignment we would have to do, and what day it would be due on. I was expecting a lecture based class and I was surprised when Ms. W didn't get up to lecture and simply told us to grab a textbook and start reading. This continued through out the school year. If we finished our assignment early, we were allowed to play around on our school issued laptops or work on assignments for our other classes. Every few weeks we would have a test over the chapters we had read and occasionally we would look at previous APUSH tests and what they expected us to know for it. By the time that the AP test came none of us in the class were properly prepared for it and only a few managed to pass the test. The class was an easy 'A' which I think an AP class should never be. An AP class should prepare the students that are in it for a college workload and should be more effective in teaching the subject than a regular U.S. history class is.

By the end of the school year I came to view Ms. Wells as a lazy teacher who didn't know enough about history to actually teach it herself. While I appreciate what the easy A did for my GPA, I don't appreciate feeling like I didn't learn anything in the class or feeling like the class didn't actually prepare me for college. I found myself looking back on the class with disdain especially the textbook. Anyone who has had to read "The American Pageant" can tell you that the lay out of the book is highly confusing and it is hard to find the information you need. One aspect of an event may be in one section of a chapter and then everything else about the event will be in another chapter. The book seems very disjointed and it is confusing to read.

Not all textbooks are well written,and often textbooks for high school don't use primary or secondary sources. An example of a primary source for history is something that was written during a specific time period (like a letter from the Civil War era or a carving from the early years of the Roman Republic). A secondary source is something written (like an analysis) of a primary source. Most textbooks use sources that are writings/analysis of the secondary sources. And I have even seen high school textbooks that have no bibliography of sources. This causes a double problem for students that have teachers that teach solely by the book. Not only is the student having to learn solely from a textbook, but they also have to deal with a textbook that may be confusing to read or may present inaccurate information.

Another issue with teaching by the book is when teachers have the students read the chapter out loud. Often teachers will force all of the students to read at least a paragraph out loud with out considering that the student may have problems that cause them to have problems with reading out loud. These problems may be a simple as confidence issues or they could be as serious as a speech impediment/disorder or a learning disability which messes with the student's ability to read out loud. Reading out loud can also be a tool used by bullies (both student bullies and teacher bullies) to humiliate students. When having students read out loud, teachers will often have the students "popcorn" read where after a student finishes reading a paragraph they pick which student will read next. If there is a student who has a problem reading out loud bullies may purposefully choose that student to read after them so that they can publicly mock the student's problems with reading out loud. I have been on the receiving end of this type of bullying because of my speech impediment which use to cause me to mispronounce words easily. I would stumble over words and take long pauses so I could calm down and pronounce the words properly. Teachers (who knew about my speech impediment) would lose patience with me and yell and me to hurry up. I have seen students with dyslexia be called stupid by both teachers and other students because they were unable to read out loud. If a student is uncomfortable with reading out loud, a teacher should talk with that student (after class and not in front of any other students) about why the student is uncomfortable with reading out loud and see if there is anything that can be done to help the student feel more comfortable with reading out loud or figure out a way for the students to go over the information in the chapter with out reading the chapter out loud.

In short: Teachers should know the subject they are teaching well enough to lecture on it and not rely completely on using the textbook to teach.

The full list of negative teaching traits I will be talking about

Well I am way behind in my negative teaching blog series, and since I am so behind I decided to post the list of teaching traits/styles I will be talking about in a negative manner.

1. Lack of enthusiasm (complete)
2. Teaching strictly by the book
3. Talking down to students
4. Using only one teaching style and never changing it
5. Not telling/teaching a student how to improve
6. Not taking advice from other teachers
7. Ignoring a student's needs (especially if the student has a learning disorder)
8. Insisting on perfection or having unrealistic expectations
9. Over/under punishing students

I am hoping to get back to work on this blog series ASAP.