Using Textbooks and Teachers' Guides: A Dilemma for Beginning Teachers and Teacher Educators

ABSTRACT

Based on data from a longitudinal study of teacher preparation conducted at a large Midwestern U.S. university, this article describes and appraises what elementary teacher education students were taught about textbooks, what they learned, and what they did with these lessons during student teaching. Although the student teachers were enrolled in two different teacher education programs, all of them developed the impression that if they wanted to be good teachers, they should avoid following textbooks and relying on Teachers' guides. They believed that good teaching means creating your own lessons and materials instead. These ideas proved difficult to act on during student teaching when the student teachers worked in classrooms where textbooks formed the core of instruction and they confronted the fact that they were beginning teachers lacking knowledge, skill, and experience.

This article points out that deciding what to teach beginning teachers about textbooks poses a significant dilemma for teacher educators. Although many textbooks have weaknesses, student teachers lack the knowledge and experience needed to develop their own curriculum. The authors argue that, rather than telling novices not to “teach by the book,” teacher educators should consider contextual constraints and the limits of beginners' knowledge and skills and teach beginning elementary teachers how to learn from using published curricular materials.