Reports of the death of the textbook have been exaggerated
This is an amended version of an article I originally published on Tue, 3 Oct 2006.
hazardous area by Terry Freedman
Dave Warlick, for whom I have nothing but respect and admiration, has fallen for what we might call the Wikipedia Effect. Is the demise of the traditional textbook really something to be welcomed?
In a blog post he wrote for the Technology and Learning website (the link has since disappeared), he imagines a time when teachers and students will, in effect, write content that will take the place of textbooks, basing his discussion on the consumer-centric position described, and promoted, by Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail. He ends by saying:
I believe that what Dave has done here, probably unintentionally, is what amounts to a sleight-of-hand trick, because buying and using traditional textbooks, and validating them, are not mutually exclusive.
Indeed, when I used to teach economic theory, I built it into my objectives that the students should explicitly be cognisant of the underlying assumptions of the textbooks they read, and evaluate the textbooks' conclusions and recommendations in the light of that analysis.
Even before that, when I was a student I had one teacher who, though quite humorous on the subject, was pretty much on the mark. He once said:
But is there not a case for saying that textbooks, like democracy, are the worst thing you can have apart from the alternatives?
Traditionally, we have this situation:
I can write a textbook and, if it seem to address the needs of a syllabus and is well-written, I should find a publisher.
[2021 Reflection: this is what should happen. Unfortunately, in England we have a situation in which many mainstream textbook publishers don’t want originality; they want people who can write to a template. Sometimes, the template or style guide even specifies how many words must be in headings, subheadings and paragraphs. Another continuing threat is that at some point publishers will only publish textbooks that are likely to be given a badge of approval by the government. This potential interference by central government absolutely awful, and provides yet another example of why I am so dead against it.]
Someone coming across my book in a book store can do some research. They can find out who I am. They can find out what sorts of books the publisher usually publishes. They can, in other words, start to piece together where I and my publisher are coming from. This knowledge gives them a benchmark against which to evaluate, or validate, my book.
We currently have a changed situation. I can write a half-baked textbook that will not guarantee any student's success, and either publish it as an ebook or publish it using print-on-demand. Either way, the only thing standing between me and the failure of thousands of students is the fact that I don't have the resources to get my book into that many hands.
What pundits like Dave Warlick and others seem to relish is the situation in which I, together with my students, can develop our own textbook. The only thing then standing between me and the failure of my students would be the high-stakes testing regime that we all love to hate.
Perhaps we could replace objective examinations with some sort of touchy-feely alternative. Using our own textbooks to prepare for our own collaboratively-produced tests, all our students would pass. It would, of course, be completely self-referential, and therefore meaningless, and potential employers and institutions of higher education will need to do what more and more of them in the UK are doing already: set their own entrance examinations which students have to take regardless of their graduation grades.
[2021 Reflection: this is almost what is going to happen in England in 2021."On 6 January 2021, the government confirmed that in summer 2021, students taking GCSE, AS and A levels regulated by Ofqual, should be awarded grades based on an assessment by their teachers.” See Awarding qualifications in summer 2021.Even if every teacher awarding a grade is not only scrupulously honest, amazingly consistent and has a perfect understanding of what work at grade whatever looks like in practice, how on earth will consistency be guaranteed between schools? In other words, will the grade 2 I award be the same as the grade 2 that you award? These are well-known issues in assessment, and quite frankly I think it is dreadful that teachers be placed in this impossible position, which will be made infinitely worse by parents complaining that their child wasn’t awarded the highest possible grade.That’s why my personal preferred solution is to stick with externally set and marked exams.]
The interesting thing which Anderson does not seem to touch on (unless it's in the last quarter of the book), is the fact that the short tail -- the bit of the demand curve that is right at the top, the area of mass hits -- is not only alive and kicking, but still much-coveted. The evidence for this is clear: what do we hear about time and time again in regard to self-published books? That one or two authors have had their books noticed by one of the big conglomerates. If you had to choose between having the Amazon or Lulu imprint on your book, or Heinemann, which would you choose? And why do you think so many so-called bands inhabit MySpace?
[2021 Disclaimer: I haven’t really looked at MySpace for like forever, except for just now when I checked whether the URL still worked. I have to say, it looks pretty vibrant.]
For the good of their health? Of course not! They're all hoping to be the next Beatles. And let's get real about this: if the long tail is such a great place to be from a author's point of view, how come Chris Anderson didn't take his manuscript down to the nearest KwikPrint?
The reality is, of course, that as we now have the technology to produce our own textbooks, we will. In that case, what we need to address are the following sorts of issues:
In a school, how are issues like equal opportunities addressed? What protection is there, for example, for the kids in my class who will be forced to use the textbook that I produced which explains the demise of the nuclear family in terms of sunspot activity?
It's no good telling students to validate their textbooks. What yardstick should they be using? After all, any yardstick they do use is likely to have been made by someone in their own back yard according to whatever specifications they felt like adopting at the time!
And please don't start lecturing me about the so-called wisdom of crowds. It's because of that "wisdom" that our television schedules are polluted by so-called reality TV shows and soaps.
When the ground we stand on starts to shift and slide, there is an urgent need to find something fixed and semi-permanent to cling onto; celebrating the fact that we're free at last is not really a sensible option!
