The Importance of Teaching Tools and Resources

James A. Garfield, the 20th President of the United States, famously said, “The ideal college is Mark Hopkins on one end of a log and a student on the other.” 

Although the most important asset in a classroom may be the teacher, textbooks, libraries, maps, labs and so forth do play a part.  This summer I considered taking a Bridge Micro-Course on the subject of teaching with limited resources but dropped the idea in favor of other projects.  The first assignment would have been to consider the question, "In teaching, how important are resources, anyway?" So I've been thinking about this.

My answer?  Surprisingly: "Absolutely vital!"

For everyday note-taking and messaging, the Romans employed a wax tablet which could be smoothed over and used repeatedly using a stylus.  Papyrus was expensive.  Parchment, once invented, was better quality but even more costly.  Even after the invention of the printing press and wide use of paper, this resource remained out of reach for everyday use.  People made notes in the margins of books or newspapers or flyers or even bills and receipts.  In the US, students wrote on slates up through the first part of the 20th century!  

Can you teach people to read and write and do math without having a portable medium on which individuals can write and take notes?  I don't think so.  Writing in sand on the beach or on the side of a rock near your village just isn't adequate.

And what about having the materials necessary to create your own plans and records, as a teacher?

In the one-room schoolhouse my grandfather attended in Ohio, there was just one math book, held by the teacher.  Students copied problems onto their slates.  Although that worked, it would have been better if everyone had been issued textbooks.  

With ESL, you could teach students the spoken word without any use of written language whatsoever.  If they are to "do homework", however, they would need to "take notes" by drawing pictures or making audio recordings, once more involving some sort of record-keeping medium.  Then, too, does the student doing their ESL homework with the aid of a QR code reading a passage to them have an auditory advantage over the student simply reading, relying on their rudimentary knowledge of phonetic spelling?  Yes, there is no question in my mind.  This is a powerful resource.

I suppose the student with the biggest advantage is the one whose parents are rich enough to fly them to a foreign country every weekend so they can routinely be immersed in the second language.  Failing that, though, how shall we best spend our educational budget?