gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn ) (04/30/86)
In article <181@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU> olson@batcomputer.UUCP (olson) writes: >PS. I hope that people out there take Feynman's remarks on high school > textbooks to heart, and if they have the chance, do something to improve > the books because far too many of them really are abismal. Um, "abysmal", which isn't appropriate for non-gaplike objects.. Anyway, the problem when I was a Texas public school student, which is very likely still the problem today, seems to be that public school textbooks have to be selected from a small list of "approved" candidates that is determined by a VERY political state textbook committee. Naturally, textbook publishers offer what they perceive the textbook committees will approve. This principle can be seen in operation with the introduction of Creationism into biology texts, despite educators, textbook authors, and publishers knowing better. The only solution I see is to reduce politics in education, which in practice probably means supporting a transition to private schools. This could be done by a rebate of the public- school portion of a family's taxes when they send their child to a private school. (The idea is usually called "tax credits for education".) Given the government's tendency to operate in areas where it has no legitimate business, it would take a substantial "grass-roots" movement to get this idea adopted.
tedrick@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (Tom Tedrick) (05/03/86)
In article <422@brl-smoke.ARPA> gwyn@brl.ARPA writes: >The only solution I see is to reduce politics in education, >which in practice probably means supporting a transition to >private schools. This could be done by a rebate of the public- >school portion of a family's taxes when they send their child >to a private school. (The idea is usually called "tax credits >for education".) Given the government's tendency to operate >in areas where it has no legitimate business, it would take a >substantial "grass-roots" movement to get this idea adopted. Hear, hear! At last Gwyn and I have some common ground of agreement.
barb@oliveb.UUCP (05/16/86)
On textbooks, and their perceived lower than lowest common denominator quality ... An interesting read is a writer's point of view on the textbook process. Go to your library (or your bookshelves) and find the April 1986 edition of WRITER'S DIGEST. The last article is "A Perfect Day for Broccoli Spears -or- Learning the Way Through the Never-Never Land of Textbook Taboos" by Pat Zettner. On the one hand it's hilarious. On the other it's highly disturbing. To quote a disremembered person: "Vanilla is fine -- if you haven't tasted chocolate, or strawberry..." The problem here, they are so afraid of offending someone, you're lucky if you get vanilla. [Oh, sorry, I'm not supposed to mention ice cream at all -- unapproved junk food, you know.] Solutions? Encourage your children to read at home. Don't limit them to the textbook environment. I would say that most of my education came from extracurricular inhaling of the printed word. The classroom is not the only realm of learning -- indeed, it SHOULD be a minor realm. There _is_ room for improvement. But the current situation is cataclysmic only if we let it be. [And this from a BA with Honors, UCD -- who had an eigth-grade math class with so _few_ textbooks we weren't allowed to take them home! It didn't help -- but, with the support of my _high school_ educated parents, I didn't _let_ it hinder.] Barb