Every morning I see students lugging around textbooks. Pounds of knowledge piled into their arms, or in their bags, weighing them down. Every student has a cellphone or computer at home, with every textbook imaginable at their disposal, yet teachers want them to carry around textbooks that are on the brink of collapse. Why?
My history textbook is almost eight years old, it has been through eight different students, and the cover is falling off. It’s also heavier than my Yorkshire terrier, Teddy.. Nevertheless, I lug it around with me to take notes. Students in my class do the same, but why do we do this when the textbook is online?
The front cover page of my textbook is a link to an online version, but I’m unable to log into it. Whether it is a student before me who never signed it out, or the school no longer paying for it, I can not use what is dangling in front of me.
During the pandemic, everything was online, and for a few months the school was able to use online textbooks. Why not anymore?
The cost. It is cheaper for the school to keep old textbooks and replace one or two when they turn into dust than to pay for the online copies. While the school has to pay $50 per student for an online textbook for an entire year, the school pays a flat fee of $135 per physical textbook.
Nevertheless, it’s what my math teacher does.
“It frees my time when checking homework,” math teacher Petra Zoettler said. “I like that it’s available everywhere.”
In class we will use a physical textbook, and at home we have a digital one. It is more streamlined and easier for both the teacher and student, yet no one else does this. Mrs. Zoettler is able to have students follow the textbook in class without worrying that they will use Chromebooks for non-academic purposes, and students will be able to use the online textbook in their study hall instead of waiting to get home. It is a perfect solution, yet no one uses it.
“I like the digital [textbook] for its portability,” history and psychology teacher Dr. Kevin Doyle said. “You can take it anywhere you go.”
Dr. Doyle’s class does not use physical textbooks — he instead relies on a digital copy which he uses both in class and at home. Students are able to use the Chromebooks in class to read an assigned passage without having to grab a textbook and lug it over to their desk. This then also allows for more desk space for each student, as a Chromebook is much smaller and lighter than a textbook.
“But people get a lot of screen time,” Dr. Doyle added, “and some of my students don’t have cell phones.”
While there is a concern about equity between students, some may not have access to Wi-Fi or an electronic device at home, but the percentage of students who have neither is extremely low.
The Pew Research Center found that in a survey of almost 1,500 teens in the United States, 95 percent have cell phones.
Too much screen time and the strain it puts on eyes is a valid criticism of digital textbooks, although I believe with the ability to turn down screen brightness and taking breaks the concern of eye-strain is limited.
Despite these concerns, if AMSA wishes to keep pace with the modern age it would be pertinent for teachers to start switching to digital textbooks. We are already lagging behind most schools in terms of technology, and it would be best not to let the gap widen before we are unable to catch up.
Not using digital textbooks is a completely missed opportunity, and I know that not only would it improve the learning quality, but it would help our collective backs.
