The hard-covered red textbook digs into my ribs as I walk into Pre-cal. I grimace. The book is thrown upon the desk with a thud. I look at it and sigh. I loath carrying that burden around.
Textbooks. What else to say? You either love it or you hate it. Frankly, there ends up being no difference between the two feelings after the seventh year carrying them across the school for the nth time. They are just too much.
As a senior who had a laptop for junior year, I admit that using a textbook is so much better than a computer. But carrying them around is completely different. They’re heavy, they cost oodles amount of money if you lose them, and they’re completely useless to a generation who is so use to little bits of information at a time that they practically have a hard time following along to the long drawn out sentences.
The useless textbooks weigh your book bag down and lead to back problems. You don’t really even need them. And it’s not just me. When the teacher announces, “You need your books tomorrow,” there is usually a collective groan that spreads across the class room. A desire for class sets or lighter, more portable textbooks fill the room.
It would solve most of the back problems in young adults across the nation, most probably.
This year, getting rid of the textbooks in certain classes- such as English- has changed nothing. The English classes never prompted the kids to use their textbooks anyway. The teachers permitted them to use the class set. Kids would go home, put the book on the floor, and forget it until it was time to turn them in.
Then they usually scramble around their room for a week, searching and digging into the piles of dirty clothes under their beds until they find the darn thing against the wall. The first thing in the next morning they usually get rid of the thing as fast as they can by turning it in before school.
The whole ‘no textbook’ policy is really not in effect. The classes that actually use them, such as Math, AP, and Dual Credit classes, still have to carry the burdens around. My guess is that teachers believe that if the student is in a difficult course, they might as well also be tortured with the weight of a textbook. And not one student will complain to the administration or bring up a solution for the textbooks.
I vote for no textbooks and no laptops. They drive us crazy with the weight and the amount of problems we have with them.
I propose we have Kindle type devices instead of books. The kindles are lighter, smaller and easier to lug around than the compacted hard-covered textbooks they make us carry now. They would be programmed to have certain books on them for certain classes. It would be no hassle to take your book to class then, because all you would have to do is put the slim device in your bag and off you go. No problem.
If the kindle idea is a no-go because of the cost or the possible damages that could be, by giving them to teenagers, then why don’t the different departments make their own study guides like the elementary schools do? Or at least make a little book that only has what they are learning for one six weeks in it, and every six weeks you get a new one. It would be easier to carry around, probably cheaper, and more efficient in teaching kids who just refuse to even touch their textbooks.
As I open my current ball and chain, I think of all the damage I can do with it. Turning the page slowly, a rip sounds and I sigh, again. I try to remember what were the purpose of the textbooks. Oh yeah, they are suppose to be getting us ready for the real world. Well, apparently in the real world we need to be able to lift 40 pounds.
I’m going to miss my textbooks. As I was leaving bobcat express this summer, I felt sad. I didn’t have my textbooks to lug home and look through. Bobcat Express felt incomplete. I later found out that the reason for not having textbooks issued because budget constraints have been issued by the state.
One reason I would be better off with textbooks is that sitting in front of a computer with your online textbook, and staring blankly at the computer screen while waiting for each page to load makes for a very monotonous homework experience. In addition, computers aren’t the most reliable source, and you can’t assume they will be working properly all the time. And what about students who don’t have Internet access at home? Computers create all sorts of problems that only make homework more complicated.
Secondly, textbooks provide a one-of-a-kind way to do homework. I want to be able to sit at the dining room table with a snack, lay all my folders out, flip open my book and start working. I want to rub my fingers on the glossy pages, hold it in my hands and store it in a special spot on the family bookshelf. I like physically turning the pages with my fingers to look up something in the glossary, and keeping tabs on important pages. Clicking through pages with a mouse doesn’t provide the kinesthetic learning style that works best for me.
Also, textbooks are easier to transport than a computer. If you have to drive a long way to a grandparent’s house or to soccer practice, you can work on homework in the backseat of the car, saving valuable time. On days when the weather is nice, you may want to take your book outside and get some sun. I like to do this because it gets me in a better mood about doing my homework. I can’t take the big family computer outside, or anywhere else.
If the power goes out in your home, and you are unable to study or do homework, the teacher may see this as just another excuse. If there’s only one computer in a house, and a lot of people in a family who need to use it, this will create conflict.
When I was in World History AP, we had to use an online text book for some assignments. My mom is also working on her graduate degree in counseling and has to complete assignments online. We had to plan accordingly with each other about when each of us can do our homework, which wouldn’t be a problem with a normal textbook.
I have experienced for myself that homework takes much longer when you have a computer right in front of you, tempting you. It’s easy to get distracted checking email, going on Facebook and on any other website that puts off the task at hand. Even if you only take quick breaks, you still lose the concentration that you would have had at a regular desk with only your textbook.
Overall, on-line textbooks are annoying and inconvenient. I love books I can hold in my hands, and they provide more flexibility in how you do homework. It would be nice to not get caught up in all this technology and have a normal book, like we always have. The textbook is a recognizable symbol of the high school experience, and I don’t like going without it.
