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Although textbooks contain an incredible amount of content and a "game plan" for teachers, I believe that the most effective classrooms would use textbooks as a resource - not the only tool in the classroom. I also feel that many of the essential skills students need such as collaboration, inquiry, curiosity, innovation are hardly addressed by the standard text. There are so many current resources including and ways to publish, that teachers should be willing to break free from the textbook.

In my world...teaching a Certified Nurse's Aid class at high school, the textbook certainly is the "ingredient list" of skills that are required for passing the State testing...how one mixes and stirs those ingredients however is open to interpretation and I feel strongly that students, particularly at the high school level need exposure to variations of the "recipe" of the CNA...hence they are taken on a variety of clinical learning opportunities, nursing home, respite care for children with disabilities, home health care....

I agree that textbooks are the tools that introduce content. There are many other resources teachers can partner with the textbook to convey content in such a way that each student develops their own set of skills and knowledge. As each teacher has a different teaching style, each student has a different learning style and presenting the information in a variety of ways adds to their success in the understanding of the material.