Does your 6th grader use a textbook in science?

Because the fundamentals of science are always a constant. Formula's do not change, concepts do not change, laws of physics do not change etc. My dh sees what is happening in class as limiting the kids. You can show a kid an experiement and test him on the vocab, but if they don't have a general understanding of what is actually going on in that experiment what is the point :confused3 Give my dd a textbook to bring home, let the kids read it themselves so they can learn it their own way, or be able to have their parents help. Its no different than giving a student a math book to take home every night, or a history book. For the students who can't learn it from a book, are they really learning it from the teacher then? I doubt it. (Again, nobody is advocating a non-hands approach).

And if you ask my dh about the limitations put on students as far as the sciences go he would say "there is a reason why Americans are really lacking in mathmatics and the sciences, it because our public education system does a disservice to us, and society doesn't have a problem with it. We'd rather make sure the kids feel good and have fun at school instead of pushing them and expecting the best from them, textbook or not."


While a lot of science is constant (when I was a kid Pluto was a planet), the learning styles are not, and thank goodness the teaching methods are not. Textbooks can be written poorly and unless you can point to any study that children can only learn via a textbook curriculum your points have nothing to do with or with out a textbook. There are at least a dozen ways to go about teaching any concept and no one way is going to work for every child.

Do you think the only place to locate everything you mentioned is only accuired through textbook based curriculum? You really should look around more at the various rich resources that are avaliable. Google any concept with lesson plans and you will find a number of various ways to teach a concept and most them are from teachers who deviated from the textbook.

DD math text was just a work book they couldn't write in. I ended up teaching her myself as the textbook had no examples or explinations. I know public school is failing but making everyone learn via one method is probably a contributing factor.

I think it is odd that you think your children can only learn from a textbook curriculum. Your DH might know a ton about science but it doesn't make him the expert on teaching. My Dh is an Electrical Engineer but I wouldn't trust his judgment on teaching math to a classroom of 30, 11 year olds all with different learning styles even though he knows it very well and is successful in his career. The teacher is not just trying to teach your child they are teaching everyone and with differnt learning styles:

Visual (spatial). using pictures, images, and spatial understanding.
Aural (auditory-musical). using sound and music.
Verbal (linguistic). using words, both in speech and writing.
Physical (kinesthetic). using your body, hands and sense of touch.
Logical (mathematical). using logic, reasoning and systems.
Social (interpersonal). to learn in groups or with other people.
Solitary (intrapersonal). to work alone and use self-study.

Most kids are a combo of the above and no one is ever just one type of learner.

The human beings in the room are the variable. The formula of text book education you are clinging to does not work for everyone. If some one is not the type to learn from a textbook then you think they are incapable of learning at all. That just shows that you don't know much about teaching or the way people learn.

Maybe you and your DH should put down the formulas for a minute and read about the art of teaching and the different ways children learn. If there were a magic formula for every child I am sure there are a lot of teachers that would love to know. You seem to be giving very little credit to teachers in general.

If you want your children to learn it all on their own via a textbook and your help than you should look into educating them yourself. This has more to do with your mistrust of the teacher's ability and you somehow think a textbook would be some sort of insurance againtst a teacher you feel is unqualified.

I am not one to sit and watch a school fail my child or any child for that matter. It is why I homeschooled my oldest up to 6th grade and placed her in the most challenging school I could find. My younger one is still homeschooled. They are both different learners.

I agree that U.S. schools in general are not challenging but I don't think a textbook curriculum is the golden egg. You should not only trust one way of teaching for your children. Regardless of how great or bad the teacher is it sounds like you suplement the education. I am just saying no textbook in the class room would not have me concerned unless I had serious doubts that the teacher were qualified.

Just because there is not textbook does not mean your children will not learn. I am trying to help you feel better about the situation by explaining that learning can very well take place with or with out a textbook. I haven't met the teacher he may be terrible but a textbook won't fix that.
 
As a scientist, your husband probably knows that most information in textbooks is AT LEAST 2 to 5 years old. This is unavoidable, and merely due to the lengthy process it takes to write, edit, and publish a textbook (I know, I have written chapters in texts myself). In a field such as science, it is often by using non-textbook materials that students get more up-to-date knowledge, new findings and discoveries, especially in this Internet age.

I know my own son's biology "text" is all on-line, so they don't have a "book" either.
 
I was asking dh what his real issue with no textbook is and he said that is because the student is a slave to the teacher's understanding of science. I think he is looking at it from a PhD physicist's POV and when the teacher tells him that they will be doing the 5 senses yet again ("because you need the 5 senses to do science" -teacher quote), in 6th grade he really was disappointed. They are not challenging the kids, they have taken the real lessons and thrown them out the window in order to dumb it down and keep it "fun". We were thinking that by the time dd was in middleschool things would have changed.
Just to clarify he is not against hands on learning. He is against not having a textbook for class . Dh does projects and experiments here at home with the kids all the time, our garage isn't his workshop, its his lab. Thanks to the pp's who mentioned the lessons you use I will definitely check them out (science is not my strong suit :rolleyes1)
To the pp who mentioned something about him going in to do demonstartions, he goes in every year to my dd's and ds' grades to do an experiment/demonstration.

I think he is against not having standards which there certainly should be. I have to agree that five senses seems ridiculous for 6th grade.

Does your state have a set of standards that must be taught each year? I know Indiana does.
 

My kids had a series of textbooks in 6th grade. They read the section, filled in a worksheet (guided notes they called it?) and took a quiz. Then they read the next section, filled in the worksheet, took a quiz. End of chapter, they took a test. BORING! I think more hands-on science sounds better. Our whole district science is repetitive and not well-organized. They do biology in 7th grade, then repeat a lot of it in 9th. They just discovered the 11th graders are not doing well on the state assessments in science (no surprise there).
 
Isn't the US below average in science and math as compared to their peers around the world?.....like China and Japan? I wonder if those countries use textbooks? I'm not trying to be argumenative, but it would be interesting to know if the lack of textbook use had some reflection on the scores of US students. I really have no opinion one way or the other on using a textbook, do what works.
 
Isn't the US below average in science and math as compared to their peers around the world?.....like China and Japan? I wonder if those countries use textbooks? I'm not trying to be argumenative, but it would be interesting to know if the lack of textbook use had some reflection on the scores of US students. I really have no opinion one way or the other on using a textbook, do what works.

In general Yes, but I live in a state where the students ranked very high even among the world leaders in Science and Math. DD attends one of the best systems in that state and they used the text book in science 2 or 3 times last year only to cover a bit of Earth Science. It was not useful from much after that.

They did not use the text for the majority of what they learned about forming and conducting experiments, or assessment of data. Most of the vocabulary they covered was not in the text.

They did use a number of more involved handouts that were garnered from other resources. That format was less about rote memorization than the textbook was. The teachers also have smart boards which allow the them to use the internet as a classroom resource. The teachers also give links to the parents so there is the option of expanding what they learned all with out a textbook.
 
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Because the fundamentals of science are always a constant. Formula's do not change, concepts do not change, laws of physics do not change etc. My dh sees what is happening in class as limiting the kids. You can show a kid an experiement and test him on the vocab, but if they don't have a general understanding of what is actually going on in that experiment what is the point :confused3 Give my dd a textbook to bring home, let the kids read it themselves so they can learn it their own way, or be able to have their parents help. Its no different than giving a student a math book to take home every night, or a history book. For the students who can't learn it from a book, are they really learning it from the teacher then? I doubt it. (Again, nobody is advocating a non-hands approach).

And if you ask my dh about the limitations put on students as far as the sciences go he would say "there is a reason why Americans are really lacking in mathmatics and the sciences, it because our public education system does a disservice to us, and society doesn't have a problem with it. We'd rather make sure the kids feel good and have fun at school instead of pushing them and expecting the best from them, textbook or not."

For the two bolded parts:

The majority of students do not learn by reading the subject matter from a textbook. They learn by seeing, hearing and doing. Math is different, it includes problems to be worked by the student not just reading material.

If school is nothing put pressure and boredom, no one is going to learn anything. If children are taught to love to learn, they will learn so much more and will spend a lifetime learning new and exciting things. Having fun in science, math or history is one way to teach them to love to learn.
 
My dd is a Jr in HS and has ONE textbook-for Algebra II. She has 6 classes and that is the only book she has.

Last year she did not have a textbook for Biology. They were to look up what they needed on a school provided web site, including their study sheets. She got a B+ in the class.

Before we moved to our current state, we did an online virtual school for middle school and she only had 2 textbooks, again one for math and one for English (grammar portion).


I would think its a whole lot cheaper and quicker to update a website as info changes, than to constantly print books that are out of date before you receive them.
 
While a lot of science is constant (when I was a kid Pluto was a planet), the learning styles are not, and thank goodness the teaching methods are not. Textbooks can be written poorly and unless you can point to any study that children can only learn via a textbook curriculum your points have nothing to do with or with out a textbook. There are at least a dozen ways to go about teaching any concept and no one way is going to work for every child.

Do you think the only place to locate everything you mentioned is only accuired through textbook based curriculum? You really should look around more at the various rich resources that are avaliable. Google any concept with lesson plans and you will find a number of various ways to teach a concept and most them are from teachers who deviated from the textbook.

DD math text was just a work book they couldn't write in. I ended up teaching her myself as the textbook had no examples or explinations. I know public school is failing but making everyone learn via one method is probably a contributing factor.

I think it is odd that you think your children can only learn from a textbook curriculum. Your DH might know a ton about science but it doesn't make him the expert on teaching. My Dh is an Electrical Engineer but I wouldn't trust his judgment on teaching math to a classroom of 30, 11 year olds all with different learning styles even though he knows it very well and is successful in his career. The teacher is not just trying to teach your child they are teaching everyone and with differnt learning styles:

Visual (spatial). using pictures, images, and spatial understanding.
Aural (auditory-musical). using sound and music.
Verbal (linguistic). using words, both in speech and writing.
Physical (kinesthetic). using your body, hands and sense of touch.
Logical (mathematical). using logic, reasoning and systems.
Social (interpersonal). to learn in groups or with other people.
Solitary (intrapersonal). to work alone and use self-study.

Most kids are a combo of the above and no one is ever just one type of learner.

The human beings in the room are the variable. The formula of text book education you are clinging to does not work for everyone. If some one is not the type to learn from a textbook then you think they are incapable of learning at all. That just shows that you don't know much about teaching or the way people learn.

Maybe you and your DH should put down the formulas for a minute and read about the art of teaching and the different ways children learn. If there were a magic formula for every child I am sure there are a lot of teachers that would love to know. You seem to be giving very little credit to teachers in general.

If you want your children to learn it all on their own via a textbook and your help than you should look into educating them yourself. This has more to do with your mistrust of the teacher's ability and you somehow think a textbook would be some sort of insurance againtst a teacher you feel is unqualified.

I am not one to sit and watch a school fail my child or any child for that matter. It is why I homeschooled my oldest up to 6th grade and placed her in the most challenging school I could find. My younger one is still homeschooled. They are both different learners.

I agree that U.S. schools in general are not challenging but I don't think a textbook curriculum is the golden egg. You should not only trust one way of teaching for your children. Regardless of how great or bad the teacher is it sounds like you suplement the education. I am just saying no textbook in the class room would not have me concerned unless I had serious doubts that the teacher were qualified.

Just because there is not textbook does not mean your children will not learn. I am trying to help you feel better about the situation by explaining that learning can very well take place with or with out a textbook. I haven't met the teacher he may be terrible but a textbook won't fix that.

I know and I think that dh's issues go far beyond a textbook. I havn't had a problem yet with my kids learning with only hands on lessons, but I am disappointed that there doesn't seem to be advances in what they are learning. Dh is very passionate about this subject and sometimes its nice to tell him our kids are not alone as far as not using textbooks. Of course to him that is still part of the problem.

As a scientist, your husband probably knows that most information in textbooks is AT LEAST 2 to 5 years old. This is unavoidable, and merely due to the lengthy process it takes to write, edit, and publish a textbook (I know, I have written chapters in texts myself). In a field such as science, it is often by using non-textbook materials that students get more up-to-date knowledge, new findings and discoveries, especially in this Internet age.

I know my own son's biology "text" is all on-line, so they don't have a "book" either.

Its funny you say that because he specifically mentioned that. His stance is that if a textbook is wrong and the teacher is teaching from it, a parent can point that out. If a teacher is not using a book, and is wrong the parent will really have no idea. Again, I have to remind him that regular (non scientist) parents wouldn't know the books were wrong either. I wouldn't.
He really doesn't see the otherside of things and I posted because I was curious to see if other parents felt the same as him. Maybe if he sees this thread, he can be a little more open-minded.
 
Its funny you say that because he specifically mentioned that. His stance is that if a textbook is wrong and the teacher is teaching from it, a parent can point that out. If a teacher is not using a book, and is wrong the parent will really have no idea. Again, I have to remind him that regular (non scientist) parents wouldn't know the books were wrong either. I wouldn't.
He really doesn't see the otherside of things and I posted because I was curious to see if other parents felt the same as him. Maybe if he sees this thread, he can be a little more open-minded.

I pointed out a glaring error on a 6th grade textbook history test and even showed where the textbook said one thing that was correct but in the test he marked everyone wrong because the teacer manual said there was a different answer. I even had my Mother in law, who just happened to be a grade 6 history teacher for 30+ years, confirm it and showed him what the textbook specificly stated. The lesson my daughter learned was not about history but about how teachers and textbooks and the tests can be really wrong.

I didn't go in saying "this is wrong!" I said "I am confused because the book says this and that is the answer my daughter put, but you said something different. Could you explain to us how this works because I am not sure what the correct answer would be?"

We make a point of going over all of her tests because I care that in the end she knows it. There are lots of times that the teacher is wrong, and lots of times where the text is wrong, that is where you teach your children to question things with tact and kindness and sometimes they have to accept that being in school means you have to put up with the person in charge being arrogant or even less informed (who hasn't had a boss like that?). It is also a good time to point out that using all kinds of resources.

Your DH should be able to get and outline of the stuff they are going to touch on and keep an eye on the hand outs and homework. The teacher has to be using resources of some sort it isn't all coming from off the top of his head it just might not be all in one convenient book.

The only time I really agreed with MIL was that teachers who rely completely on a textbook are not teaching. Those textbook tests are so odd sometimes and are ususally multiple choice. The textbook wants you to remember what year the lightbulb was invented while a teacher will ask you to explain why the lightbulb was a great invention.
 
I teach math and science in a 3rd-6th grade school. We don't have science textbooks. We use a combination of FOSS and STC science kits as well as science tradebooks. Even for the subjects that we do have textbooks for, the book itself is not what guides instruction. Every state has a set of standards that must be met each year. As a teacher, I need to make sure that I am teaching those standards, but HOW I do it will vary.

The use of a textbook vs. science kits usually has more to do with administration than it does teachers. In my district we do have the ability to be heard, but we do not make the final decisions as to what materials we use. If you really feel strongly about the textbook, attend a Board of Ed meeting and speak up. You have the right to do that and I'm sure they will share the reasons why they are doing what they are doing.
 
Well... DS (13) doesn't have a science textbook either but he does have a science CD An entire textbook in digital format. Same goes for history.

I do think a textbook or some sort of documentation IS important, simply so the child has a reference for formulas, vocubulary, diagrams, etc. A teacher should not rely upon a child having access to this information at home/via the internet as not everyone has a computer at home and the library isn't open on Sunday.

I also think that unless they do something REALLY technical with the 5 senses (like here is a diagram of the nervous system and how it works, and how it ties into sight, name all the various nerve types, etc.) that the curriculum has potential to be to easy (as you put it dumbed down) for 6th grade. My DS was studying basic physics at that age (what is a nucleus, what is an atom, what happens when you split an atom, etc.) as well as photosynthesis, diagraming flower/plant parts, growth cycles, etc. in the 6th grade. Right now he is studying acids and alkalines and their composition and effects (H2SO4/Sulfuric Acid was the topic of the day on Friday).
 
As with most subjects, concepts are best taught by doing, rather than by reading about. I realize your dh is a scientist, but I think most teachers of science would agree that "doing" science has a more lasting impact than "reading about" science.
 
Found out at orientation tonight that no, they do not. They will be using the internet a lot, we were told. I really liked the teacher. :goodvibes
 

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