Since early in the 19th century, textbooks became a crucial teaching instruments in schools, especially in Europe when education became compulsory. Textbooks are basically tools of instruction in any branch of study, and are usually created in several at different level, for example “mathematics book 1, book 2 and book 3“, according to the students targeted, and become more complex and complete as the students evolve, early grade students using book one while those more advanced use book 3. They are usually used for 1 to 2 years before the next book becomes necessary for a proper and regular progress. Different level textbooks may either contain different information, a low level accounting book teaching about basics like profit and loss accounts among others, and a high level one offering higher level knowledge such as standard and marginal costing accounts, or different level explanations, a higher level textbook containing more advanced and in depth explanation than a low level one. Nowadays, they also come with their own CDs or DVDs, bringing education to a next level. However, the way textbooks are used may vary as this depends mostly on the teachers and their approach to it.

Textbooks are commonly considered as the link between the teachers and their students and also the parents. They may be a guide into the world of knowledge, or simply a bank that holds on to all the knowledge. What importance it has depends mostly on the teachers and students. To some teachers it may simply be a support to their classes and a revision tool that supply students with quality information. To others it is an important component of their classes and base their teaching methods on these books. They try to obtain the best and richest textbooks for their students. There are also teachers that define textbooks as an approach to the subject different to theirs the students can access at any time and consider this a good method to help students develop their own opinion while another group thinks that using textbooks too much will confuse them and disturb their progress. However it is not rare that teachers are against the textbooks they how to use, and that ever since they have been used in classes.

Even though textbooks are very useful, many complain that they lost their true meanings, they are books meant to be read for the knowledge they contain, a meaning that disappeared under the weight of teachers that use them to do photocopies of different that they distribute regularly among students. These practices, in a few cases, can however be explained by the fact that textbooks are often out of date before new versions are available, and as schools tend to be against including untraditional textbooks in their teaching methods, thus making of photocopies the cheapest way for students to get updated information. Also teachers use photocopies when the textbooks lack important information needed by their students. However, the main reason why teachers rebel against textbooks is the lack of liberty they offer them. They are chosen by s set of teachers that don’t put the books quality, how it conforms to the curriculum, how the information and exercises and displayed and distributed along the books, how many pages it has etc, over how it affects the teacher-student relationship. This causes the textbooks, in some cases, to feel like a chain to teachers rather than a tool they would use.

School textbooks, if well used in the proper environment can be students’ and teachers’ alike, most useful learning and teaching instrument, helping them progress respectively, teachers, gaining the knowledge they lack, and students, learning to study on their own, with minimal help from their teachers.