By the book

When I student taught, a teacher with a lot of experience kept lecturing me that you don't teach by the book. Indeed, she said, you shouldn't use the book at all.

That made no sense to me because every class I had ever taken had used a book, been driven by the book.

And, when I had my own classes - I kept being driven by the book.

This year, I get it.

I have Algebra students. If I taught by the book, I would miss thinking every day: what do they need, what do they know, where do I want to move them. I use the book a little. The particular book we use is written for a calculator (we don't have them) and so the numbers are what I like to call hairy. Instead of using simple numbers (y = 2x + 3) they will use interesting ones (y = x/7 + 2/9) which make it harder for kids not good in math to "get it."

In my business math class, the book is awful. It isn't well written or clear. The definitions are not well written. I rarely use it.

Funsucker thinks it is THE BOOK. Every time she teaches, she has the kids read out loud. She has them listen patiently while she works the sample problem from the book, then they can do classwork. We have worksheets that a previous teacher wrote so the kids have something to practice on, but she relies on THE BOOK.

Mr. Ego is even worse. He believes in retesting the students so they can master the material. Sounds good, doesn't it? He drives by the book: one section every day (regardless of whether the kids have mastered the material or not. His tests are the ones delivered with the books, not anything he has written. Same publisher as the algebra book, same reliance on calculators. Since the kids are seniors, some of them have them. Same hairy numbers.

He is doing his same end-of-year thing. He belittles them, threatens them, they are running out of time, etc. etc. So, the day before a test, his room is full with kids desperately trying to learn enough that they can pass.

Wednesday, there was not enough room for all of the kids, so they asked another teacher to help them. (Remember, none of us knows enough to be able to be any help at all.) She taught it, gave them ways to remember where the parts of logs go, simplified it so they could understand, really did a stellar job - and all of these kids did outstanding on Mr. Ego's test the next day.

He accused each and every one of cheating, because there is no way they could have learned it without him.

I think the other teacher is angrier at Mr. Ego than the kids are. She is insulted that he would question her ability to teach.

But he has managed to teach me something I was resistant to. The book makes a lovely help and sometimes a great roadmap. But it isn't the important part of teaching.