Comments on: The Problem with Textbooks

By: Ross

Ross — Sun, 26 Apr 2015 16:38:57 +0000

Christof Schiller “Motion Mountain”, a magnus opus on all branches of Physics is superb and essentially free.

I’ve wondered over the years why I’ve heard so little about it.

By: Becky

Becky — Fri, 17 Apr 2015 19:52:03 +0000

Reminds me of Richard Feyman’s frustration of reviewing textbooks.

By: BJK

BJK — Fri, 17 Apr 2015 16:16:59 +0000

Just use Schaum’s. The explanations are never as important as lots of test problems. I’ve used Schaum’s to teach myself all the math I didn’t learn in high school.

By: Bill

Bill — Fri, 17 Apr 2015 12:07:12 +0000

These textbooks are a disgrace. I wonder how many parents have examined them. One September evening, my (then) middle school son came to me almost in tears. He was unable to do the math homework in his new 7th grade math book. I was shocked to find out that every chapter in his book started with a table of vocabulary words in both English and Spanish. Really? Most mathematicians and engineers would say that mathematics is itself a language. The book had so many brightly colored pictures and useless diagrams that it was almost impossible to read. I finally understood why the fictional detective Monk sometimes uses his hands to block out useless visual stimulus to focus on what is essential. I could barely read it, and I already understood the material. The problem sets were incomprehensible, requiring the student to go back and forth over a dozen pages just to understand the problem.

Fortunately, my son persevered, and he is now a college sophomore taking 500-level math intended for grad students. I was so happy when he showed me his college math books; all black and white, no diagrams, no useless photographs – just math. A language all its own.

By: A Boy and His Dog

A Boy and His Dog — Fri, 17 Apr 2015 02:17:43 +0000

For most subjects they could do a one-off printing of old textbooks that are in the public domain. Maybe some small old fashioned districts could form a co-op to reduce printing costs.

Also, one wonders if the common core will help to ameliorate the situation by limiting the patchwork of standards that need to be included.

By: Letters in a Box

Letters in a Box — Fri, 17 Apr 2015 02:09:15 +0000

I last looked at it a few years ago, but I thought that Halliday & Resnick (with the addition of Jearl Walker) had expanded into the online world with supplements and exercises very well.

By: Rdub

Rdub — Fri, 17 Apr 2015 00:57:36 +0000

I knew I was seeing the beginning of the end when my Director of Ed. gleefully handed me what seemed to be a thick glossy catalog, saying: “This is what textbooks are going to look like now, so get used to it!”

Graphic-heavy slick pages with a “Seventeen” magazine inspired format, including essays by such luminaries as Henry Rollins (I am a fan of his music, but who is being squeezed out of a textbook to make way for his writing?), all at a remedial level.

By: Bob Sykes

Bob Sykes — Thu, 16 Apr 2015 23:50:51 +0000

The amount of work to do that is enormous, and the reward is zero.

As P&T chair, I saw several young faculty exert huge effort in developing online resources for their students and get no credit for it either from the (enititled) students or their colleagues.

The easy way is to select a reasonably good text, and spend your time getting grants.

By: Faze

Faze — Thu, 16 Apr 2015 22:33:34 +0000

Why do teachers still need textbooks? All the information needed to teach any subject is available for free on the internet. Can’t a teacher simply hand out a list of links at the beginning of the semester, and direct students what to read at those links? (I’m not being faux naive. I really don’t know the answer to this question.)