As younger, inexperienced teachers are thrown into classrooms to meet new federal standards, as much as 90 percent of the burden of instruction rests on textbooks, said Frank Wang, a former textbook publisher who left the field to teach mathematics at the University of Oklahoma.
And yet, few if any textbooks are ever subjected to independent field testing of whether they actually help students learn.
If America’s textbooks were systematically graded, Wang and other scholars say, they would fail abysmally.
Textbooks have become so bland and watered-down that they are “a scandal and an outrage,” the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a nonprofit education think tank in Washington, charged in a scathing report issued a year and a half ago.
“They are sanitized to avoid offending anyone who might complain at textbook adoption hearings in big states, they are poorly written, they are burdened with irrelevant and unedifying content, and they reach for the lowest common denominator,” Diane Ravitch
I have noticed more and more of my teachers teaching right out of the book, and those classes tend to be the hardest because A) the information is not explained well and B) we are expected to know all the info in the book down to the most minute and grased over topic (ex. if we were reading a passage on the cod war, and it was a big chapter with lots of big events and there was a sentence that said “Ronald Reagan’s favorite movie was Star Wars”, odds are that might show up on a test.
The other thing is that teachers don’t give tests to see if we know the material anymore, they make tests to trick the students. That, and they give way to much homework (I have at least 3-4 hours a night) that they put way to little weight on, either that or they never check it, except for like once a mounth when the check, only to find out no one did it, and then the flip out! My science teacher does this all the time, it realy pisses me off. If they’re not gona check it, then don’t asign it, I have better things to do with my time.
I think that part of the problem is that teachers are really geared toward teaching to the Standards of Learning (SOL) tests anymore. Whether or not a student is capable of thinking is irrelavent. The primary question is “Are the students capable of learning very specific answers to very specific questions?”
We are learning by rote anymore.
I agree that books probably are sanitizing themselves, which is a horrible thought. I’ve actually heard that certain history books are reworking things so as to not be offensive. Hence, they are in essence rewriting history.
My opinion is that you can’t eliminate things that are offensive today from a history book, or you won’t remember why it is offensive. Besides, certain facts are just that – FACTS. Are we supposed to clean up the crusades by leaving out the they were wars based on being a “mission of god” because that will offend the athiests? If we do then, that really makes the brits and other European countries look like mere evil conquerers. But that wasn’t actually what it was about (it was to a certain extent, but…).
Also, I agree that books and teachers do aim for the lowest common denominator. The US believes that everyone should get a basic education. I endorse that fully, but the facts are that not every person on the planet, or even in the US, is going to go to college. And the facts are that some people either have very low IQ scores or just don’t care enough/are too lazy to learn. That’s just true harsh facts.
I believe that we need to set a basline and teach to that baseline. And, we need to be aware that not everyone is going to make that baseline. Otherwise we will just continue to lower our standards, which will cause people to be lazier still, which will cause us to lower our standards again, etc.
No wonder half of today’s US students can’t identify Louisianna on a map of the US!! (see the recent Gallup polls)
Textbooks are big business. Contracts are usually awarded based on committee approval, but that often means picking between a few submitted books, all of which are bad. Sometimes the topped rank books aren’t awarded due to deadline problems or other reasons. Richard Feynman took a few swipes at this process in his book, ‘Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!’
On textbooks:
>
Similar to newspapers, it seems.
#2: >
You do can. That’s why all idiotic mass movements (catholic church, nazis, communists, PC, etc.) all have been or are eager to eliminate things, ideas (and people) that seemed offensive to them. It did not work, and it won’t work. Reality simply does not care, reality is offensive.
As an educator I would agree that most K-12 textbooks are terrible. Some of the blame lies with publishers who have self censored, whitewashed and just failed to check facts. Blame also falls on a few states such as California and Texas. These states adopt the same textbooks statewide instead of by school district or teacher. While this gets them a great price it also means the politicians and consituants in those states basically get to write the textbook. This is one big, big mistake. It causes much of the material, especially in history books, to be radically skewed or eliminated. The same can be said for biology and health textbooks. Economies of scale are not always such a good thing.
Too bad…
This should probably encourage parents to be more involved in their child(ren)’s education and supplement it with things outside of just ordinary school.
#1…I noticed that many students in this country complain about the homework being too long and is not checked. I myself have gone through it, through all of the schools I have attended. However, homework is not for the benefit of the teach, it is for the benefit of the student to do it and learn from it. Assignments are assigned for this reason, not for the teacher to check each and individual assignment done by the student.
This colleges and universities, this is especially the case. Considering a professor may have 3 – 5 classes which they teach, maybe a minimum of 50 students. That’s somewhere between 150 – 250 assignments to check, each time an assignment is assigned to the students. That makes no sense. These students are adults and should have the expectation that they are attending to learn, grading assignments by the professor is not required. However, students are expected to do the assignments to learn the material and do well in the class because they have an understanding of the material given through assignments.
California textbooks can’t talk about “winners or losers” in a war, can’t put anyone in a “negative” light, and must have an equal number of men, women, and balanced representation of ethnic, religion, and sexual persuasions.
I’m not sure how it is still history, as it becomes more “fictionalized” than truth.
As for the state of education…when I was a kid…there was one principal and one secretary per school, and a nurse (in a white uniform). Our class size was limited to 16 students per teacher, and we had a LOT of college “wanna be teachers” doing internship and were acting as class room aides. Oh, and we had a “floating” staff…so, once a week we had an art teacher, a music teacher, a science teacher, and a PE program. Our textbooks were several years old….always, and expected to last for at least SIX years, usually more like 12.
Now each school has an educational staff, no nurse, a principal AND a vice principal. The intern program seems to have gone away. And, the class size is up to 28 in some districts. NO art, no music, and no PE. Budget cuts, you know. Plus, with all those administrators (and even MORE at the Unified offices) how will they pay to push paper if they hire TEACHERS? The text books now have a shelf life, much shorter….because of all the new revisions to history, I assume. Plus, gotta pay a staff to review them…and you can’t keep them sitting on their hands!
I’m sorry, it’s not just textbooks….it’s the whole system. It’s the “political correctness” and it’s beancounters doing “cost cutting” to make more room for more report writers, and less hands on education.
Our kids aren’t educated because we have left it to “experts”. And, like usual, just anyone can become an expert.
#9…your comments pretty much sums up the type of students there are in this country. Boredom of books by the students means that the schools should change their academic teaching curriculum? I understand how you feel about “those” books; I hated it going through pre-collegiate schooling reading “literary” books. But the facts are, these are “great” literary pieces, being bored of Shakespeare, Twain, etc. does not mean it should not be thought. These works are not just stories, but also represent the views of people within that frame of time that they were written, so it’s kind of historical too.
What is even worse is teachers who don’t know the material (or have a basic grasp of it from university 10 years ago), and then, instead of even trying to teach from the textbook, they give you the textbook, and make you learn it yourself, independant study style … what exactly are they getting paid for?
It’s a survival of the fittest kind of thing, where the parents that care spend time with their kids and ensure their getting a balanced education, and the ones that don’t simply allow them to slide down the path of least resistance. America needs dumbasses to man the registers at the fast food joints, to pilot the millions of weedeaters, lawnmowers and edgers and to empty all the portapotties spotted here and there across the land.
By the time a kid enters the fourth grade he or she has all the skills needed to push a lawnmower or take an order at a greasy spoon.
They should be teaching to the lowst common denominator. That would lower the price of books. They really don’t need so many True Color photographs in math books, or big insets of special anecdotes. Cut the books size in half and drop the price to $10.
#10… Did I say ANYTHING about Shakespear? No, and do you know why? Because it makes sence to learn shakespeare bacause he was a writer who had a signifigant impact on the english language, and there is a reasoning behind reading them, where as the majority of the other books that we have been forced to read don’t have any such Reasoning, with the exception of a rare few like The Cattcher In The Rye or Fahrenheit-451 (Funny how these are also the only ones that I liked). I mean they took 1984 off the the required reading in favor of A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, which was the single worst book I have ever read! 900 pages of yack yack yack, no plot, nothing. I was realy looking forward to reading 1984 (I did read it on my own eventualy). I just don’t get how, if they can replace two books with completly diferent plot ideas and settings, why couldn’t they have just put Rainbow Six of Goldfinger in there insted? I mean the least they can do is assign books that were written after the second world war instead of these books writen in the 20’s and 30’s that have very little in common with the world of today, and offer little litterary signifigance!
#14…I mentioned Shakespeare as an example. It’s too bad they replaced 1984, as it is a very good book. They probably replaced it because it’s a fiction that sort of depicts the sign of the times here in the United States.
If you have a particular author in mind after WWII that has works that are considered great by the literary consensus, you should feel free to make a suggestion with your English department. Better yet, get a group of peers and parents to support your suggestion as well (perhaps your local PTA?). Changes only happen for people when the people are active for them.
Unfortunately, you would actually have to have teachers that read the book and develop a course plan that is approved by the Department of Education of your locality or perhaps just your local school’s department. Good luck with that.
Keep one thing in mind though; there are not as many critics and/or scholars of post-WWII literature, as there is pre-WWII. These are the REAL sources where teachers get their critique from.
I agree with you in regards to most of what you said, except content of readings should not be changed simply because they are boring.
Its just a shame that there is SO MUCH history that they wish to CRAM into our heads, esp when you consider BOTH sides of a story.
They REALLy need a better way to teach it.
ECA….American history is pretty light compared to SOME COUNTRIES….try Chinese, or even UK history. We’re a joke!
History is all in the telling.
#7 Sorry forrest, but that logic does not hold water. If students were there *purely* to learn, then it makes sense that homework would merely be recommended and ungraded. However, once you add grades to the mix and make qualifying for ensuing courses, graduation and entry in grad school based on those grades it stops being an exercise purely for learning and becomes a game to get the best grade. In short, it becomes an economics problem where time is the scarce resource and maximizing grades is the goal.
#17….meetsy….your comment made me laugh….when I first went to university in England, a friend of mine from Scotland asked if I was feeling culture shock…..I said not to much, wny? He said because your in a student housing building that is older than your country by 200 years.
Makes you think.
The problem is caused by a combination of factors. Parents who don’t care about their child’s education, watered-down textbooks backed up by watered-down teaches and a spineless school administration system.
Take a look at Jay Bennish, the infamous left-wing Denver public High School teacher who didn’t teach geography, but instead used the classroom as a bully pulpit to rant about his own political views. Did the school administration do anything? Nope! He’s still getting paid to spread his drivel.
I would like to also point out that ALOT was happening AFTER 1492 to 1776… Including NORTH america, where they were trying to setup trading, and settlements, for MANY of those years, and ALOT were wiped out for odd reasons.
Can I add..
I cant see WHY the school districts DONT, make their own books, and set up shop…
It would save ALOT of money..
I agree with a lot of the points made here, especailly with # 9 and #14. I think the main reason why high school english classes do not use books like Rainbow Six, etc. is that they are too “new” and have not had enough time for meaning to be inserted by english majors looking for a master’s thesis project.
Furthermore, the California editions of US History books are pretty bad. My school just had one of those nights where the public can look in at the books about to be sent to approval broads, and I must say that those books are have flat out mis-information. One of those books mentions the orgin of the school shootings as Colombine. Not the shooting at a Texas university in the 1960’s. One of the contributors to thebook was there representing the publisher, gave me some canned BS about how they cannot get everything right, and that the history of school shootings is some what of a specialized area.
24,
Agreed…
the shootings of the 60’s shows HOW people in this country ACTED against the government.
history is only colored by those WHO WON…
But True and REAL history, along with TRUTH, is Uncolored, unbiased…
And I would rather ALL of it, be included, then to have it WHITE WASHED, or deluded.
It would be GREAT to have the schools MAKE their own history books, and sci books, WITHOUT the edits…
http://www.authorama.com/
OLd books release to the public domian, including those OLD school books, about HOW to make your own rockets, REAL ones, not how to buy a KIT. the OLD, survival books the boy scouts used to get..ANd many more..
> But True and REAL history, along
> with TRUTH, is Uncolored, unbiased…
That is only partially true when it comes to the subject of history. Yes, part of history is what events took place and involved which people. However, the other part of history relates to the motivations for actions taken at the time. That depends greatly on subjective analysis that is made objective only through consensus of historians and it is in this area where history is re-written to benefit the present.