The things they teach kids in school today. Details in the pdf. From science to history to law, evidence of increasing political bias in education.
posted on Apr 7, 2008 - View this thread

19th Century Schoolbooks, over 140 examples online. Browse the collection and find digital images of such gems as: School melodies : containing a choice collection of popular airs (1852), The American drawing-book (1847), Slate and black board exercises (1857), and of course we got your McGuffey's.
posted on Nov 29, 2007 - View this thread

Open Text Book: a blog which lists freely-available online textbooks.
posted on Oct 25, 2007 - View this thread

So you want to write a textbook? Take advice from N. Gregory Mankiw who got a $1.4m advance for his book on economics. Try some advice from Garrett Bauman who says no to originality or David A Rees who says the opposite. Maybe you just need a dose of reality from the bitter guy.
posted on Mar 4, 2007 - View this thread

The Problem With Emily Dickenson "On August 25, six students, along with their school, Calvary Chapel Christian School in Murrieta, California and the Association of Christian Schools International filed a federal lawsuit against the University of California where, according to the LA Times (August 27), admissions officials have been accused of discriminating against high schools that teach creationism and other conservative Christian viewpoints." One of the textbooks used to teach literature has this to say about Mark Twain: "Twain's outlook was both self-centered and ultimately hopeless. Denying that he was created in the image of God, Twain was able to rid himself of feeling any responsibility to his Creator. "
posted on Nov 29, 2005 - View this thread

The National Center for Biotechnology Information Bookshelf. I was searching for an online version of the CD that came with my Neuroscience, 3rd ed. (Purves, et al). What I found was pretty amazing - a full, searchable online version of my book (albeit the older 2nd ed.), including full-color diagrams. The NLM under the NIH has a division called NCBI which hosts a horde of other cool books. [Other aspects of NCBI covered previously; book archive previously on AskMe; more inside]
posted on Nov 14, 2005 - View this thread

Free Latin grammars and Texts are available for budding Latin scholars as well as Law and Med students who want a jump on all the professional lingo. Forum Romanorum provides very readable texts on Roman culture, life and history. Finally this better than average latin quotes page is available for the Mefites who just want to be able to spout Latin quotes (or who want to know what Latin quote gasbags are going on about)
posted on Jun 30, 2005 - View this thread

The Textbooks of Military Medicine. An engrossing collection of pdf versions of textbooks used to train military medics. My favorite one is the one on War Psychiatry, which includes summaries of studies that have been done on veterans of WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam, and another section on POWs and their phychiatric reactions (perhaps it might explain some things about Kerry or McCain?). Other topics include Medical Aspects of Harsh Environments (Vol. 1), Medical Aspects of Chemical and Biological Warfare, and Medical Consequences of Nuclear Warfare (<-- pdf file).
posted on Jun 16, 2004 - View this thread

College Textbooks Are Half-Price Overseas. The big secret is out. As college students hammer into their piggy banks to buy books for their classes, academic publishing avarice has no limits. The results? An unexpected import-export gray market and a possible antitrust violation after previous claims of "high costs," while McGraw Hill profits. Meanwhile, Bush promises free textbooks to Iraq.
posted on Oct 21, 2003 - View this thread

Only men bake cookies in school textbooks. What do dinosaurs, mountains, deserts, brave boys, shy girls, men fixing roofs, women baking cookies, elderly people in wheelchairs, athletic African Americans, God, heathens, witches, owls, birthday cake and religious fanatics all have in common? Trick question? Not really. As we learn from Diane Ravitch's eye-opening book "The Language Police," all of the above share the common fate of having been banned from the textbooks or test questions (or both) being used in today's schools.
posted on May 2, 2003 - View this thread

Jihad in textbooks: yesterday and today.
posted on Feb 20, 2003 - View this thread

Textbook Publishers Learn to Avoid Messing With Texas. "Out of Many," the work of four respected historians, is one of the biggest sellers among American history college textbooks in the United States, but it is not likely to be available to Texas high school students taking advanced placement history. Conservative groups in Texas objected to two paragraphs in the nearly 1,000-page text that explained that prostitution was rampant in cattle towns during the late 19th century, before the West was fully settled.
posted on Jun 30, 2002 - View this thread

Math text battles. Teachers unanimously recommended textbook series that helps students understand mathematical concepts. School Board ignored them and picked Saxon texts that promise to "raise scores on standardized tests." Are we teaching students to understand, or to score high and get politicians off the hook?
posted on May 17, 2001 - View this thread

Science textbooks are riddled with errors. It sounds like they've gotten as bad as history textbooks have been for about thirty years. How the heck does any kid learn anything in school anymore? (Answer: a lot of them don't. And no wonder.)
posted on Jan 14, 2001 - View this thread