We shouldn’t be shocked really. Because we all knew this was the way things were heading. It’s a digital world ruled by digital devices, so doesn’t it make sense that textbooks in school would be next?
Yet, something in me was a little stunned when I read the article headlined, “Lawmakers approve move to digital textbooks.”
It’s a proposal awaiting Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s signature that would require schools to switch to digital textbooks in four years. Florida would become one of the first states to aggressively move in this direction.
In many ways, I’m all for it. I have an iPad and use it for everything from work to reading books to playing with a little digital cat who pretends to scratch my screen. (I’m high-tech and lowbrow.)
From an environmental point of view, think of all the paper we’ll save — all the waste we’ll eliminate. Think of all the trees that won’t need to be cut down, or that can be used for toilet paper. I don’t know about you, but my house could always use extra toilet paper.
It’s the future — I get it. I’m on board. But still … digital textbooks?!? Something nostalgic in me is having a hard time getting used to the idea. Something that still longs for those big, bulky, paper-wasting behemoths. Those monstrous beasts that curved many a child’s spine while carting them to school like Sherpas up a mountain. That we stuffed into lockers haphazardly so they could spill onto our toes when we reopened it. (Toe decapitation is little spoken about, but a very real problem in American schools.)
A digital tablet doesn’t replace that feel of a book in your hand — the turning of pages, that connection with the words, the highlighted passages, the way the crease along the spine could so perfectly hold your face if you fell asleep studying.
Not to mention the fact that for generations, used textbooks became two-in-one educational tools. You learned about science and algebra in the printed portion, and dirty jokes, racecars, cutdowns and the female anatomy in the margins. Ever wonder why young boys grow up with such skewed ideas about the female body? Take a look at the margins of a textbook.
Can you do that on a tablet?
And paper books build character — help us overcome adversity. Once when I was in fifth grade, my cat Jaws pee-ed on “Fahrenheit 451.” It was an acrid, nauseating smell that I had to live through. I sprayed it with Polo cologne and read on. The book took on new meanings for me that I doubt any scholar has ever considered.
Can you get that on a tablet?
Textbooks were so much more than books. You might need them in a fight. You might need them to hide behind in class so you could catch a few winks or eat a snack. You might actually learn something in them.
They were like Scantron tests and No. 2 pencils. Dreaded and a total pain, but can you imagine school without filling in all those bubbles? God only knew what would happen if you didn’t completely fill them in. I figured a huge rip in time would open and swallow mankind. When my parents asked how I did on a test they never understood why I said, “Not so sure, but at least the world is safe.”
Scantron will probably be next to go, then those journals with the jagged-y zebra striping on the cover.
I’ll miss them all, even while I accept progress and a future of “flipping” through digital readers with my daughter. But I won’t forget the printed textbook. I still have one or two I can dig out. I’ll show my daughter one day what I used to learn on. Of course, only after I black out everything in the margins.