Dump the devices and bring back textbooks

Textbooks are boring, they said. Textbooks are stuffed with so many graphics and sidebars that they're overwhelming. Textbooks are obsolete.

Textbooks -- printed on paper -- are valuable learning tools, argues Robert C. Thornett, who teaches at a Great Hearts classical school in Arizona, in Education Next.

Schools brag that they're "ditching textbooks for digital learning," he writes. Often, that means materials found online or created by colleagues with no guarantee of accuracy or coherence.

By contrast, "everything found in a good textbook — narratives, diagrams, art, maps, primary documents, homework questions — is carefully planned and organized by experienced authors and professional editors," Thornett writes. Furthermore, "state-approved textbooks are tailored to cover the state learning standards." Without a textbook, it's harder to track students' progress through the curriculum.

Textbooks usually are written by a committee, critics complain. They are rarely literary masterpieces.

But the process has value, writes Thornett. "The content of textbooks is often a matter of fierce debate between parents, state and local school systems, and even politicians. . . . The PowerPoint presentation Bob made and dropped into the departmental folder is vetted by no one before teachers use it in their classes."

E-books "are usually cheaper and more portable," he writes. "They allow text searches and embedded links to source material." They can be updated easily.

But reading on screens has a “detrimental effect” on reading comprehension that “increases over time," according to a 2018 study. Students already spend way too much time looking at screens.

Sweden is dumping digital devices and going back to printed textbooks, reports Samir Sebti for Daily Galaxy. In 2009, Swedish schools went digital. It was modern and high tech, and they hoped it would be cheaper in the long run.

But, "reading on screens (especially those bright ones) can lead to more eye strain and less focus than good old paper," Sebti writes. It "can mess with memory retention and understanding text." And devices in the classroom are distracting.

So the Swedes are buying printed textbooks for every subject, and encouraging students to spend less time on screens.

The Swedes are right, argues Michael Zwaagstra for Canada's Frasier Institute. Students need more printed textbooks and fewer devices in the classroom.

"The latest Programme for International Assessment (PISA) report, which tests the academic skills of 15-year-old students around the world, found a negative correlation between excessive student use of digital devices and academic achievement in math, reading and science," he writes.