When I first started teaching psychology and walked into my own psychology classroom to see what I had to work with, among a mess of old, indecipherable photocopies, I was met with old, yellowing books that had been published 18 years prior.
The 15, 16, and 17 year-old students that would soon be sitting in my classroom would be using books that were older than them. Every single study that was cited: older than them, if not extremely older than them.
Not to mention, these books oozed with 90s vibes. It became a class joke for me to host "story time" to read the 90s after-school-special style stories at the beginning of each chapter. They would beg for it and die laughing.
Don't get me wrong, the 90s can work when the fashion is brought back in a fun way, and I love me a 90s movie to bring on the nostalgia. BUT that's not where you want to look for relevant, timely, and accurate information about a field changing as rapidly as psychology. It's not helpful with the effort to present psychology as the serious science that it is.
I wish I could tell you I did something about it. But I was a brand new baby teacher that year. "Overwhelmed" doesn't do the feeling justice. I taught with ancient books and found ways to supplement them with my own resources, creating the very beginnings of The Adventurous Classroom resource collection.
New Year, New Psychology Textbooks
Fast forward a couple years to a new school and different (still outdated, though not as terribly) old books. With a better grasp of my content and a full understanding of the pitfalls of outdated material in psychology, I was ready to make a case to make sure my students had updated resources. The other new psychology teacher and I (it helps to have a buddy!) made our case:
The books we have are OLD - give the specific year. If they're older than your students, use that fact to highlight their outdatedness. For other subjects, older books might be okay because the content is relatively stable, but in psychology, we are learning new things all the time and the old information is often wrong. We gave some specific examples here of theories of emotion and conceptions of gender.
We don't have enough books for two class sets (one for each psychology teacher to keep in her classroom), because previously there had only been one teacher. So some additional books are needed either way.
We've already done the research and chosen our preferred book, received a free copy from the publisher (just ask!), and were satisfied. Administrators love this! Textbook research is tedious, especially if you're not familiar with the curriculum.
To our surprise, our administrator said "Yes!" Enough books were purchased to provide each of us with a teacher's edition and a class set for our students.
And they lived happily every after...sorta
Were the books better than the old ones? Definitely.
Did they make a huge impact on my students motivation, engagement, and learning? Probably not.
To be fair, I'm glad that we were able to get new textbooks for our students and don't think it was a complete waste of time and money. However, textbooks are not the be-all and end-all of teaching a successful class.
Think of your psychology textbook as a resource among many resources you have to support your curriculum. If your book is lacking and outdated, replacing it could be beneficial, but you can also put your energy elsewhere and get a better return. Maybe your school is willing to fund professional development for you to improve your content knowledge. Maybe they will purchase specific resources your students can use in class or materials that would make an experiment or project possible. I can't help but think how far the money spent on books that year would go if spent on other things for my classroom.
It's time to look beyond the textbook. You can teach this entire class without one if you know where to look! Many other resources are much more current and relatable. If you don’t have a book, or your book is older than your students, don’t fret!
Textbooks are not the be-all and end-all when it comes to planning and teaching and there is freedom in realizing that.
How to use the psychology textbooks you have
Whatever the state of the textbooks in your classroom, it can be helpful to dust them off and find a use for them. One thing I like to have students do at the beginning of the year is a textbook scavenger hunt. This short activity can be done in the first week of school to help familiarize students with the psychology content and give them their first look at the book they may or may not be seeing a lot of.
This two-page handout guides students in exploring their psychology textbook and psychology’s integrated themes while answering questions. All the questions are general enough for this to be used with any psychology textbook. It can be used individually or in groups, and can even be a good way to include movement around the room.
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