My Thoughts About Textbooks

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I just read a post from one of my fellow MOOC classmates, which was a mini-rant about textbooks. I would have to say that I agree with him in thinking that textbooks have been the biggest rip-off of my college career (aside from the meal plan). We, as students, spend hundreds of dollars on textbooks every semester for our courses, which I think is highly problematic for three main reasons:

Issue Number 1: I think that textbooks make some teachers unbelievably lazy, or lose their zest for actually teaching and instructing. Some professors think that if they come across a textbook that aligns with their course work, they can just prescribe this as our main course of understanding, and then go over any questions that we have in class. I have taken way too many General Education courses where this was the issue. Some professors even assign readings that we do not go over in class, but they somehow end up on our exams.

Issue Number 2: By show of hands, how many of you have taken a class where a professor has assigned a textbook, and it spent the whole semester collecting dust in your car, on your desk, or in a drawer somewhere? Well, I have both of my hands waving high in the air. I have taken many courses just like this, and I still remember some of the really absurd prices that I paid for textbooks that I did not use ($160 math textbook my Spring semester of freshman year!). If a professor does not plan on having us crack into a book, then what is the point?

Issue Number 3: I feel the pain of this issue every semester; the problem of selling back your textbooks. We spend hundreds of dollars on these things, and once the semester is over, we're lucky if we can get back even half of the price that we paid. Every semester, there is at least one or two books that I shelled out a ton of money for, only to reel back, mouth agape, when I hear of the price that is offered to me when I try to sell them back. I would snatch my (now useless) book up in horror, clutch it tightly to my chest and quickly flee from the scene, because I refused to give up something so expensive for so little (Yes, this is exactly how I react, every time!). With that in mind, how valuable could these textbooks really be if institutions are willing to offer so little to purchase them? It really makes me wonder.

Personally, I have gained just as much from a class without textbooks (if not more), as one with them. A perfect example would be this course, where there are no textbooks and the class is largely online. Yet, I feel as if I am learning so much.

I think my verdict here is that textbooks do have their merit, when they are used as an integral and sensible part of the course. However, I respect those professors who do not use textbooks at all,  and have utilized other sources (poems, short stories, novels, movies, pictures, group work, the list goes on) as teaching aids.  I have had many professors who have done this, and those were the classes where I was thoroughly engaged, and still remember the key concepts.


*My classmate's blog post link here: http://ggmetaliteracy.blogspot.com/2013/10/free-textbooks.html