Dear Editor,
I read with interest the editorial in your newspaper on the issue of schools defying no-textbooks advice, dated on September 28 2009. I came up with some opinions on this issue at once and would like to share them with readers on the topic below:
Should schools stop using Liberal Studies textbooks?
The Education Bureau has advised against the use of textbooks when teaching the brand-new, unfamiliar subject, Liberal Studies. While the Education Bureau is trying to persuade schools to prepare their own teaching materials, most of the schools defy the advice. As an A-Level student studying Liberal Studies, I would like to voice my concerns over the issue.
Liberal Studies textbooks are town walls. While town walls surround the citizens, Liberal Studies textbooks besiege the knowledge. Textbooks set boundaries for the acquisition of knowledge which should not be limited to any extent. A Liberal Studies head teacher said the basic theories provided in textbooks could not be acquired through reading newspaper. By the same token, updated news cannot be obtained in textbooks printed beforehand. The news examples given in textbooks are no longer up-to-date when they are discussed in the lessons since the textbooks may be published a couple of years before we use them. Using textbooks as the main teaching materials will not enable students to learn comprehensively as they may easily stick to the principles stubbornly without trying to put what has been learnt into practice. The issues studied by students in liberal studies are indeed evolving and ever-changing. Students have to know what the outside world is happening, which textbooks containing only historical facts cannot completely help.
Having newly designed syllabus, the subject has loads of green hands but few experts. That is why some teachers claim they have to use textbooks for authority and guidance. Honestly speaking, teachers and we students are trying to understand this stranger together. It is indisputable that the concepts mentioned in textbooks cannot be ignored, but they should serve as a supplementary helper only. All the sources available to us like newspaper, TV programs and the internet should be the main character of the subject. Take one of the modules I study—Human Relations–as an example. The unwholesome trend of compensated dating has aroused much social concern in recent months. When analyzing the issue, teachers and students have to look for materials mentioning such trend since textbooks may not have it as an example. We can refer back to textbooks to extract the relevant theories. Everyday life is what we should work on, not the text.
Some teachers also show concerns about the cost problem. They find printing out self-made notes on campus cost a lot. Thus they decide to use a dozen of textbooks costing more than HK$3,000 per year on average. As I have mentioned above, a large variety of updated materials from diverse sources can be employed. Would surfing the internet, playing video tapes, showing news articles in class cost more than a set of textbooks? Smart people can tell. I will not deny that theories are systematically presented in textbooks, but students can jot down the important points teachers said and develop methodical presentation themselves as well. Why bother to use textbooks as an attempt to save cost when we can choose so many low-cost and updated teaching materials nearby?
As for another module I study, energy technology and the environment, there are a lot of factual information, data and graphs, which would take a lot of time for teachers to self-make, as stated by a secondary school liberal studies teacher. However, is that a reason for teachers to adopt a more convenient teaching method, but one that provides pupils with a limited range of perspectives? Reading this, some teachers may blame me for not understanding how stressful teaching is, not having the experience of preparing teaching materials, and the like. I hate to say this, but, as a student, I would say it is teachers’ duty to prepare the best for us. Of course, liberal studies students should also find materials themselves to enhance learning. My liberal studies classmates and I have to do news clipping on a regular basis. Not only do we just ‘cut’ the news and stick on exercise books, but we also need to dissect the topic from different angles. In this way, we can share each others’ work and learn thoroughly. Isn’t it neither costly nor time-consuming?
The Education Bureau’s advice is in fact student-oriented. It aims to provide pupils with a wide range of perspectives. The subject name, Liberal Studies, when translated into Chinese, has got the meaning of ‘learning and knowing everything’. With textbooks as our main teaching materials, can we still achieve such a goal? A definite NO!
To keep abreast of the times, we have to study a whole bunch of different materials on top of textbooks to enrich what we learn in liberal studies. The fact that many teachers have yet to gain relevant specialist training in this new subject encompassing a wide range of fields cannot come to a conclusion that textbooks are the best tool for teaching. Both the ideas of no-textbooks and mainly using textbooks are not inclusive enough for students to achieve the best results of learning. In a word, schools should treat textbooks as reference books, while up-to-date sources as the object of study.
Yours faithfully,
Renee Chan Yee-ka
Carmel Secondary School