3 ms·

I always find something a little ridiculous in these articles that blame the textbook for errors (or a statewide test), when the textbook has been through more

I always find something a little ridiculous in these articles that blame the textbook for errors (or a statewide test), when the textbook has been through more review than an exercise that an individual teacher designs. That said, math textbooks are becoming an anachronism. Adaptive individualized content is already available up to high school level.

rcthompson 15y ago
Did you even read the article? The whole point is that the textbooks are written on an impossibly tight timeline by unqualified and underpaid writers and undergo little to no review, either by the publisher or the school districts buying them.
- mattmcknight 15y ago
  Your comment is not related to the subtext of my comment. The guy has an editor for his textbook contributions, but no editor for the material he gives his own class. Therefore, the textbook material gets more review than something he does on his own. To your point, if he is unqualified to write exercises for a textbook, he would also be unqualified to create these for his own class. If he is underpaid...that is largely irrelevant- if he were really underpaid, he wouldn't have taken the job. The article was of the anti-corporate bias perspective, which is why it was on Salon.com, that this is because of the "profit motive" of the publishers. However, that perspective is also nonsensical. The examples do not change that much from edition to edition- they are seldom created from whole cloth. Even in his tortured example of complaining about the golden ratio problem was one of textbook translation- pointing out that, as an author, he cared about things other than the effectiveness of the text. It is true that many textbooks are of low quality...but considering the bias of the writer, the whole article is a bit self-serving, while also being hypocritical. All points about the incompetence of textbook buyers stand though. They choose for the worst of reasons, with effectiveness almost never even on the table as a concept.

rcthompson 15y ago

Did you even read the article? The whole point is that the textbooks are written on an impossibly tight timeline by unqualified and underpaid writers and undergo little to no review, either by the publisher or the school districts buying them.

mattmcknight 15y ago
Your comment is not related to the subtext of my comment. The guy has an editor for his textbook contributions, but no editor for the material he gives his own class. Therefore, the textbook material gets more review than something he does on his own. To your point, if he is unqualified to write exercises for a textbook, he would also be unqualified to create these for his own class. If he is underpaid...that is largely irrelevant- if he were really underpaid, he wouldn't have taken the job. The article was of the anti-corporate bias perspective, which is why it was on Salon.com, that this is because of the "profit motive" of the publishers. However, that perspective is also nonsensical. The examples do not change that much from edition to edition- they are seldom created from whole cloth. Even in his tortured example of complaining about the golden ratio problem was one of textbook translation- pointing out that, as an author, he cared about things other than the effectiveness of the text. It is true that many textbooks are of low quality...but considering the bias of the writer, the whole article is a bit self-serving, while also being hypocritical. All points about the incompetence of textbook buyers stand though. They choose for the worst of reasons, with effectiveness almost never even on the table as a concept.