The dark side of textbooks.

Good afternoon! 
This week our group have been working in our new work and it had to be based on a criticism of a big problem that we have that it is directly related with the teacher,(also with all of us), the excess and misuse of the textbook . 
Also publishers are so important because their goal is to earn the most money possible. But it is true that we share many ideas with the ideas of our teacher who explained it in class: we study a lot to finish our degree but then we became readers and not teachers, and be a reader can make it a person without a degree.
Well, there are great contents and lessons in many textbooks that are very useful and we can use it in class, but there are teachers who do not open their eyes to realize that they have to evolve, and a textbook can sometimes be okay but at other times you have to open your mind, because working always with a textbook deletes our own experimentation. And if we are guided by a textbook , we will limit the learning of our students.

Well,our work as a group has to reflect that, and we have to work with one of this four tools,all of them with common licence, to make our criticism.
Here are the four tools that we have:
-Comic.
-Infographic.
-Fable.
- TV advertisement.

   The last, TV advertisement, it is that our group have chosen. Fortunately, all of us were agreed with the choice because immediately came to our minds many ideas for videos, and all of them would be very visual and real. Then we decided to develop three scenes in 4 different videos, because a scene is divided into two videos, because we couldn't spend more than 40 seconds per video. Maybe limit of time was among the few problems we have had this week, because we wanted to say many things and show details but we always spent too time. 
Apart from this, it is important to say that every scene and every character has an important reason to appear in it.                                                                                              

• In the first video, appears the director of a school and the owner of  a publishing business , and they have to reach an agreement in the principal's office. In this scene, we want to reflect that as each year, the publishing business knows that it would be easy, and if not, he will offer to  her all the material that she need it. Then, we can see that at the end of that day, the director is worried about her decision. But the next day, there is one of the'' boring'' classes, and it is interrupted by the director, who says to the teacher the decision and  the teacher announces the decision taken. Then the teacher tells to the students that they have to close books and prepare for a new activity.(who are dressed in black representing boredom and tradition).

• In the second video, we can see a class of primary school (all dressed in black, because they are bored.Then the teacher enters the class, like every morning and when  they see the teacher that  this morning does not bring the textbook, the girls are excited, but really there was again the book (which we have exaggerated, because girls hate it). The teacher begins the class and indicates that they have to open their books.                                                             Then, appears the only student who wears colorfull clothes, (to signify that it is the one with a new idea), asks a question to the teacher to see if they can do something different and dynamic related to the topic of the trees that they are learning, and the teacher replied that they have to open the book and obey her  because they have to continue the lesson, so children protest.

• In the last video, appear three mothers who are talking in the street. As every year, they are hopeful that they can use books from the other children because they always have the same problems and they  have not got enough money to pay it.

Here you have the four videos, and we hope that you enjoy it:

Before end, i would like to show you, a collage summarizing our hard work week. Enjoy it!

Finally, the reason that we have chosen TV advertisements (and no the other options), it's because we think it is a very visual and correct way to impact on the receptor. While we entertain our students and we have a good time, the message is quickly understood . Also involves an implication by the entire group, and it's better because all of us working and take part in the activities equally.

¿Why the topic of the dark side of textbooks?.
Because every year families are facing a big expense, textbooks.
In Spain, schooling is a big effort for families even though in the article 27 of the Constitution establishes the right to study and in paragraph 4 of the same article states that "basic education is compulsory and free." Contradictory statement because one third of the Spanish families are unable to bear the expense of the return to school. It's becomes only a document because the reality is very different, and this is a business that moves 1200 million per year.                                                                              
The business of these textbooks is behind them, with the big interests of powerful institutions and individuals, of course, all of them have always been supported by governments, and it's clear that many of the contents are manipulated into one direction or another based on those interests.    
We think that, although there are good contents in many textbooks, people are misusing them, because in the age we live in, basing the child in a unidirectional and shoddy knowledge, without giving the child tools for knowledge overall, it means a sign of decadence and stagnation. 
The knowledge acquired is using only the memory, without the student can actively participate. It is only based on open the book to the page that says the teacher and the lesson learned. Lessons  that contain texts which ''distort'' many of the realities and informations, as we have said before.  

For this reason, is a complaint about textbooks, but the balance is tilted more towards the way that teachers make use of this textbook, a misuse obviously. The problem is that we are limiting ourselves to be mere readers killing creativity and enthusiasm of the students, who probably will
forget most contents they have learned with the old methodology. And even any of those contents won't be related to their daily lives. Education can not be followed during an entire course with a textbook and after an exam for which students only study using their memory.                                                                                                     
The world and the society are changing and the education have to change too, because prepare  students to the future is not only study , it is that they have to learn how to manage network resources, resources which are certainly useful and interest.                                                           
But it is very important to clarify that the reason  it is not converting the paper book in ebook and decorate it, because it would be the same problem. What we need are teachers who teaches children to move in the network, find resources, filter them, choose them, to identify the bad, to share the good, to comment them, to remix them ... to all that, of step that they access to knowledge, they learn to handle information in the formats in which they will use in their adult life.
This is the importance of it, we're talking about the actual world in which we live, in a constant cultural, economic, political and of course educational-social change. We need teachers that encourage the creative potential of each person..                          
Also, we should encourage cooperative learning  by interacting  of all students, which represents a break with the past and tradition.
And finally, related to textbooks, there are complaints about the contents and it manipulation, but also about the message that is being taught to our young people, who see that they no need to take care of a book because the following year it won't serve. And behind that ,of course, there is an important ecological perspective, which is linked to the economic, the importance of our enviroment. 

Post made by: Mayka Vidal Sánchez.