Confessions of a Textbook Editor

POSTED BY: canttakesky
UPDATED: Monday, July 31, 2006 15:49
VIEWED: 1532
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CANTTAKESKY

Friday, July 28, 2006 6:52 PM

Quote:
SOME YEARS AGO, I signed on as an editor at a major publisher of elementary and high school textbooks, filled with the idealistic belief that I'd be working with equally idealistic authors to create books that would excite teachers and fill young minds with Big Ideas.

Not so.

I got a hint of things to come when I overheard my boss lamenting, "The books are done and we still don't have an author! I must sign someone today!"

Every time a friend with kids in school tells me textbooks are too generic, I think back to that moment. "Who writes these things?" people ask me. I have to tell them, without a hint of irony, "No one." It's symptomatic of the whole muddled mess that is the $4.3 billion textbook business.

Read more...

http://www.edutopia.org/magazine/ed1article.php?id=art_1195&issue=nov_
04

I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. I worry about the declining education of our children and the future they will inherit.

Can't Take My Gorram Sky

DEEPGIRL187

Friday, July 28, 2006 6:57 PM

Cry. Especially when you consider the cost of college textbooks. Not only is the younger generation getting the shaft (and have no choice in the matter), but the older generation is paying for the privilege.

**************************************************

"Now they see the sky and they remember what they are."

SOUPCATCHER

Friday, July 28, 2006 9:09 PM

After reading the article I just have to shake my head and think: this is what organizations like Students for Academic Freedom, Campus Watch and the Center for the Study of Popular Culture want to do to colleges.

What is described in the article is like a wet dream for social conservatives and limited regulation free market idealogues. Monopolies. Lack of oversight. Cherry picking buzz words from research. Tremendous editorial power given to idealogues. And on and on.

I find it fascinating that the author gives two examples (woohoo, balance, woohoo) of critiques that publishers pay attention to. From liberal groups the critiques are about how information is presented. From conservative groups the critiques are about what information is presented. One group wants to make sure we are bending over backwards to not enforce stereotypes. The other group wants to keep children from learning about topics that may challenge an idealogical worldview. The money quote: "The Gablers had no academic credentials or teaching background, but they knew what they wanted taught--phonics, sexual abstinence, free enterprise, creationism, and the primacy of Judeo-Christian values--and considered themselves in a battle against a 'politically correct degradation of academics.'"

No wonder conservative groups want to remake colleges. They've spent forty years turning K-12 textbooks into their own private indoctrination material. Then, all of a sudden, their children get to college and might, horror of horrors, realize that they've been fed a very narrow diet. Must. Control. Education.

CANTTAKESKY

Friday, July 28, 2006 9:42 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SoupCatcher:
Must. Control. Education.

Well summarized!

I like that he offered ideas for reform. Until that happens, I'm homeschooling.

Can't Take My Gorram Sky

GINOBIFFARONI

Friday, July 28, 2006 9:42 PM

History is only a lie agreed upon

Napolean Bonaparte

" Fighting them at their own game
Murder for freedom the stab in the back
Women and children and cowards attack

Run to the hills run for your lives "

http://www.darklyrics.com/lyrics/ironmaiden/liveafterdeath.html#12

SOUPCATCHER

Saturday, July 29, 2006 5:54 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
I like that he offered ideas for reform. Until that happens, I'm homeschooling.

Good luck with the homeschooling.

I've seen good and bad experiences in my own family (niece=so far so good, cousin=bad). I don't know all the particulars but there were different motivations that may have foreshadowed the results. My aunt and uncle thought of homeschooling as a way to control the information their children received and to present only their own beliefs. Not too surprising that my cousin did a complete 180 as soon as he left home (lifestyle, ideology, etc). My brother and sister-in-law chose homeschooling because they felt they could give a better education than the underfunded, understaffed and overflowing public school could provide.

HERO

Saturday, July 29, 2006 2:39 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. I worry about the declining education of our children and the future they will inherit.

Isn't poor education a good thing?

I mean the less educated kids they pump out the less competition I face and the more secure and high paying my job is. Thats why I voted against the library levy.

H

SERGEANTX

Saturday, July 29, 2006 2:53 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SoupCatcher:
Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
I like that he offered ideas for reform. Until that happens, I'm homeschooling.

Good luck with the homeschooling.

I've seen good and bad experiences in my own family (niece=so far so good, cousin=bad). I don't know all the particulars but there were different motivations that may have foreshadowed the results. My aunt and uncle thought of homeschooling as a way to control the information their children received and to present only their own beliefs. Not too surprising that my cousin did a complete 180 as soon as he left home (lifestyle, ideology, etc). My brother and sister-in-law chose homeschooling because they felt they could give a better education than the underfunded, understaffed and overflowing public school could provide.

I think 'unschooling' is a better way to approach it. The most important thing is just to break away from the institutional mindset. Education is a lifelong thing that is almost completely the responsibility of the student, especially as they get older. The sooner kids learn that lesson the better off they are, whether schooled at home, public schooled, or not at all.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

FREMDFIRMA

Saturday, July 29, 2006 3:34 PM

When I was much younger, I used to collect History textbooks - this was brought on by noticing some radical differences between my original History Textbook, a 1968 Silver Burdett (ever more useful as a bludgeon than an educational device even then...) and the 1975 History Textbook they replaced it with...

And so when I spotted some various History textbooks at a yard sale for 50cents each shortly after that, I bought them, and brought them home, and compared them to each other, and to encyclopedia brittannica - and a disturbing picture of how we warp history in school began to emerge....

I think it was at that very moment, that I began to actually THINK, to reason, to critically examine evidence and question it, to LEARN, instead of obey.

Our schools do not teach this, they dare not teach this, they teach conformity and obediance, because that is what they were designed to do, educate the next generations just enough to where they will be useful servants, but NEVER enough to be a threat.

It was history, that defeated them... and the act of lying to a born skeptic.

-Frem

CANTTAKESKY

Saturday, July 29, 2006 5:16 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
When I was much younger, I used to collect History textbooks

That is a very, very cool idea. Our library has used textbook sales all the time. I might just do that. Thanks for the idea.

We homeschoolers sometimes call schools "Robot Factories."

Quote:
Originally posted by SergeantX:
Education is a lifelong thing that is almost completely the responsibility of the student...

Well said. One study found that homeschoolers test scores were not correlated with parental education levels. That is, the student with PhD parents scored as well as student taught by high-school dropouts. Goes to the point that homeschooling is all about self-directed learning.

The reforms suggested by this author is actually practiced by many homeschoolers. Using a core outline but picking our own texts and supplements. We are the end of the line in decentralized education.

Can't Take My Gorram Sky

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