What is Wrong with Using Textbooks in Education?

Abstract

In this article, it is argued that the inordinate amount of time and attention given to the use of textbooks in education inadvertently leads to deadening miseducative experiences and creates a learning environment where what Dewey calls ‘consummatory experience’ is thwarted. In order to unpack this thesis, Dewey’s pragmatist aesthetics is engaged, and in particular, his concept of consummatory experience is defined and its temporal nature is elucidated by referring to two modes of time: chronological and phenomenological. Subsequently, the relation between teaching and consummatory experience is elucidated to uncover the reason why using textbooks is counterproductive.

Keywords:

• John Dewey’s pragmatist aesthetics
• consummatory experience
• chronological time
• phenomenological time
• textbooks
• education

Notes

1. Other concerns regarding the use of textbooks in undergraduate college courses focus on the pressures on textbook writers to make textbooks homogeneous, and the commercial considerations and market forces that perpetuate an encrusted form of topic sequencing which stifles novel approaches to structuring the content of a course. For instance, Wouters (2008a), frustrated with the ossified structures of accounting textbooks, proposes to change the order of topics given in a typical introductory-level accounting textbook so that the concern for the inherent ambiguity and messiness of accounting practices is not sacrificed for a false sense of immutable ‘logic’ of relaying accounting facts and concepts. He argues, in a rather unorthodox fashion, ‘for a revised order of teaching topics in an introductory accounting course, which takes cash flows as the central theme and always explicates and motivates “deviations” from cash flows. This may help students to understand the paradox of rigor and ambiguity of accounting. On the one hand, we aim to explain the rigor of accounting and to make it “logical” for students. On the other hand, we want students to understand the inherent subjectivity of accounting. Constant confrontation of cash flows with the accounting choices for the representation of these cash flows (as well as accounting choices for other events and uncertainties that do not involve cash flows) may help in dealing with this dilemma in teaching’ (p. 3, italics added). Wouters’ focus on ‘constant confrontation of cash flows with the accounting choices’ is a testament to his desire to inject life into a topic that is traditionally considered stale and dull by highlighting the dramatic and unresolved (and unresolvable) elements in interacting with accounting concepts and practices. In his commentary on Wouters’ essay, Bhimani (2008) suggests that in the face of economic and market forces textbooks tend to suffer from ‘structural isomorphism’ that makes flexibility of topic sequencing less likely. However, he claims that instructors can circumvent the inherent rigidity of textbooks by departing from the prescribed order of topics by reordering them as they see fit. Wouters (2008b) in his rejoinder states that he does not question the ability of instructors to make the changes they think are appropriate. He nevertheless points out that the pedagogy of teaching accounting concepts needs to be reappraised to make room for a more integrated approach to teaching accounting, where financial accounting, managerial accounting and finance are not treated separately, and that learners are taken seriously by referring to their lifeworld to make accounting more relevant and come alive. The discussion sparked by Wouters’ proposal is a good example of why textbooks, by their design, tend to de-problematize a given field and reflect a false sense of consensus and immutability.

2. It should be pointed out at the outset that in the ensuing analysis the focus is on textbooks and the way they influence the process of education (unfavorably, as I will argue) regardless of how competent the instructors who use textbooks are. This, however, should not be construed as an attempt to provide an essentialist analysis of what textbooks are and what they do. I am not after such an essence. Nor do I believe that it is possible to attain one. My aim is much more modest. I simply would like to provide an analysis of why textbooks fail to engender the kind of educative experiences that bring a heightened sense of meaning and fulfillment Dewey thinks is possible. Furthermore, within the confines of this article I will not analyze how a given instructor or an educational institution appropriates their interactions with textbooks. In other words, the intentions of the actors involved and the myriad ways they interact with textbooks are not the focus of this article, for even if we assume that we have greatly competent teachers who can neutralize the unfavorable effects of textbooks while they teach, this does not change the way textbooks are mired in the way the chronological mode of time eschews the unpredictable, precarious and emergent elements in an educational situation.

3. It might be objected that the assertion that textbooks in their traditional role as ultra-efficient conveyors of knowledge are instruments of miseducative experiences is too harsh, that there are certain redeeming features of textbooks that need to be acknowledged. Bednarz (2004), for instance, claims that textbooks can be an instrument of educational reform. In her analysis of the role of geography textbooks in supporting the campaign to reform K-12 geography education in the USA, Bednarz (2004) sees the function of high school-level geography textbooks as being to disseminate the National Geography Standards across the country. Granting that ‘textbooks are not widely respected but they are widely used’ (Bednarz, 2004, p. 224), she nonetheless believes that textbooks ‘play an essential role in the US educational system and could be real agents of change to assist in the implementation of innovations in geography education’ (Bednarz, 2004, p. 224). From an institutional perspective and with heavy emphasis on uniformity of and conformity to the norms set up by the institution in question, imagining textbooks as tools of curriculum reform may seem to be a worthwhile effort. However, the focus of this article is the experience of learners and instructors in coming to terms with a given subject matter through a process of inquiry, which, by definition, is ill defined. By de-problematizing the given subject matter, textbooks discourage the process of inquiry, especially in its Deweyan form, from unfolding in a tensive duration.

4. Note on citations to Dewey’s works: standard references to John Dewey’s work are to the critical edition, The collected works of John Dewey, 1882–1953, edited by Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1969–1991), and published as The early works: 1882–1898 (EW), The middle works: 1899–1924 (MW) and The later works: 1925–1953 (LW). I adopt the following formula in referring to pages in the standard edition of his works: for example, ‘Experience and nature, LW1: 18’ means that the quoted passage is on page 18 of a book-length work comprising Volume 1 of The later works. Similarly, for instance, ‘The meaning of value, LW1: 74–75’ means that the quoted passage is on pages 74 and 75 of an essay from Volume 1 of The later works.