I'm still in love with you, textbook author, but you need to cool it now
April 3, 2017 3:54 PM Subscribe
...because if this isn't love for your students (causing you to release another new edition), then you can count me out!
If High School and College Textbooks Were Honest.
Other Cracked Honest Ads.
Boy, it's a good thing that sitting in a classroom with other students, a teacher, and a stack of hugely overpriced books isn't the only viable way to obtain a socially-recognized education.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 5:00 PM on April 3, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 5:00 PM on April 3, 2017 [1 favorite]
Ironically, I've been unable to find a good open source ethics textbook.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 5:53 PM on April 3, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 5:53 PM on April 3, 2017 [1 favorite]
Speaking as a college professor, I found some of the points in the ad to be accurate, but some totally wrong, at least when it comes to textbooks in my discipline (mathematics). It's true that prices tend to be absurdly high, and that I've seen no convincing explanation for why that's the case, other than corporate greed. It's true that many popular textbooks, especially for introductory courses, get new editions every few years, where the content remains largely the same, but gets shuffled around (for the purpose of being incompatible with prior editions).
On the other hand, most of the widely-used textbooks are written by experts (as opposed to interns copying Wikipedia, as the ad suggests). They typically do contain information that can't be easily gleaned from surfing the internet, or at least organized in a way that is more conducive to learning. Also commercially-produced textbooks tend to be more polished than ones that are freely available, though there are exceptions. Finally, university administrators don't, in my experience, tell professors what books to use, though individual departments may have policies regarding specific lower-level courses.
Why do we keep using those textbooks in college courses? I can think of two reasons. First, in order to forgo relying on a textbook written by someone else, each professor (or each department) would need to write their own (textbook or other comparable resource). Universities are rarely willing to compensate us for the time that sort of undertaking would require. (And if they did, the students would still end up paying for that with their tuition money.) Also, it's not likely that this would on average produce better material than what can currently be bought. Second, when a particular textbook comes to be seen as the "standard" for a specific type of course, it's tempting to use it, in order to not be too far out of step with other universities. This, for example, can be helpful for students who transfer between universities.
posted by epimorph at 6:27 PM on April 3, 2017 [6 favorites]
On the other hand, most of the widely-used textbooks are written by experts (as opposed to interns copying Wikipedia, as the ad suggests). They typically do contain information that can't be easily gleaned from surfing the internet, or at least organized in a way that is more conducive to learning. Also commercially-produced textbooks tend to be more polished than ones that are freely available, though there are exceptions. Finally, university administrators don't, in my experience, tell professors what books to use, though individual departments may have policies regarding specific lower-level courses.
Why do we keep using those textbooks in college courses? I can think of two reasons. First, in order to forgo relying on a textbook written by someone else, each professor (or each department) would need to write their own (textbook or other comparable resource). Universities are rarely willing to compensate us for the time that sort of undertaking would require. (And if they did, the students would still end up paying for that with their tuition money.) Also, it's not likely that this would on average produce better material than what can currently be bought. Second, when a particular textbook comes to be seen as the "standard" for a specific type of course, it's tempting to use it, in order to not be too far out of step with other universities. This, for example, can be helpful for students who transfer between universities.
posted by epimorph at 6:27 PM on April 3, 2017 [6 favorites]
No doubt this statement will be followed by an annotated list of all textbooks, and why each one is crap.
posted by erniepan at 6:32 PM on April 3, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by erniepan at 6:32 PM on April 3, 2017 [1 favorite]
Yeah, like epimorph, I don't feel like this is my experience of textbooks in my discipline (linguistics). I personally know many of the linguists who have written the textbooks I assign, (and the ones I was assigned as a student), and I know they are the result of years worth of expert research distilled into something that can be used in the classroom, and were usually user-tested over years of that person teaching from the exercises and notes that eventually became the textbook.
They aren't super cheap (I try to keep the ones I use under $50 a book, but that still adds up for students). But our university now has an agreement with certain large publishers that all first year students get all their textbooks for free (as e-books), which is cool, and relieves the burden a bit.
I don't typically use textbooks in my upper level classes, but students are constantly mad at me about this (because it makes them go to the library, or at least click through a few links to get to e-copies of papers) and they have to read real papers and critically think about conflicting material from more than one source. I stick with it because it's good for them, but that's not really a skill most first year students can develop while also grappling with all the new demands of university.
posted by lollusc at 9:44 PM on April 3, 2017 [3 favorites]
They aren't super cheap (I try to keep the ones I use under $50 a book, but that still adds up for students). But our university now has an agreement with certain large publishers that all first year students get all their textbooks for free (as e-books), which is cool, and relieves the burden a bit.
I don't typically use textbooks in my upper level classes, but students are constantly mad at me about this (because it makes them go to the library, or at least click through a few links to get to e-copies of papers) and they have to read real papers and critically think about conflicting material from more than one source. I stick with it because it's good for them, but that's not really a skill most first year students can develop while also grappling with all the new demands of university.
posted by lollusc at 9:44 PM on April 3, 2017 [3 favorites]
These aren't textbooks, but New York did create a ton of resources and then released them under a Creative Commons license. N.Y. 'Open' Education Effort Draws Users Nationwide
posted by eckeric at 9:33 AM on April 4, 2017
posted by eckeric at 9:33 AM on April 4, 2017
I think you can make a distinction between university textbooks and secondary school textbooks, although probably some of the lower-division intro university texts are more like secondary school texts than not.
Most of the people I know worked on high school science textbooks. And while the texts were nominally authoritatively authored, the text is highly edited and, more importantly, all of the secondary and supplementary materials -- from the sidebars and graphics and photography, to the workbooks and multimedia and the various supplementary stuff -- is created and produced by these editors.
And then there's the whole nightmare of the Texas School Board of Education.
Again, some of this stuff spills over into college intro textbooks, but I think that much of criticism in this is aimed toward the middle-school and high-school textbooks.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 9:57 AM on April 4, 2017
Most of the people I know worked on high school science textbooks. And while the texts were nominally authoritatively authored, the text is highly edited and, more importantly, all of the secondary and supplementary materials -- from the sidebars and graphics and photography, to the workbooks and multimedia and the various supplementary stuff -- is created and produced by these editors.
And then there's the whole nightmare of the Texas School Board of Education.
Again, some of this stuff spills over into college intro textbooks, but I think that much of criticism in this is aimed toward the middle-school and high-school textbooks.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 9:57 AM on April 4, 2017
Just came on to thank you for all the New Edition lyric refs!
posted by mabelstreet at 6:56 PM on April 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by mabelstreet at 6:56 PM on April 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
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posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 4:32 PM on April 3, 2017 [1 favorite]