Teachers writing own textbooks

Press, 23 January 1988, Page 37

Teachers writing own textbooks

Teachers and textbooks go together like blackboards and chalk, but a little more rare is to find teachers who actually write their own resource books.

Tony Murdoch, Pam O’Connell and John Rosanowski, of Aranui High School, began writing textbooks about three years ago and their third work, about black civil rights in the United States, 19541970, was published last November. Mr Murdoch said that each of the teachers had been involved individually in writing textbooks for some time, but not until one of them was approached by Longmaan publishers did they decide to pool their efforts.

All three of their books are designed primarily to fit in with the new form five school certificate syllabus. They are aimed to be easily understood while at the same time capturing the interest of the students. “Martin Luther King

and the Black Civil Rights,” also includes sections on Muhammad Ali and the first black major league baseball player, Jack Robinson. Mr Murdoch was in Wellington earlier this week to present a copy of the book to the United States Ambassador in honour of Martin Luther King.

The book fits into the “Social Change” theme of the school certificate syllabus and will be used for the first time this year.

However, the first book written by the Aranui High School teachers, “New Zealand’s Search for Security,” has already received good use in the classroom. “We are all well aware of the students’ need, and the first book seems to be on the right level, whereas some of the older text books are very wordy and tend to be hard to understand.” Mr Murdoch said he had received positive feedback about the book

from students in mixedability classes, however, most did not say anything to his-face about his name being on the cover.

“It takes us the best part of a term to write a book, but because it is divided between three people it is not as onerous as it would seem. “We have a chat together first, then one of us decides to be editor to draw up what we need to cover, and we each write certain chapters.”

The teachers have already begun work on a fourth book which will be based on some aspect of New Zealand history, continuing a New Zealand "heritage” series they began with the publication of their second work, “New Zealand in the Gold Rushes.”

"I think we will keep writing for a while yet,” said Mr Murdoch. “I enjoy it very much, it is an interesting diversion, although it is really just an extension of resource work which we are continually doing.”