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Many school textbooks woefully outdated - Deep cuts in funding shackle teachers
Houston Chronicle ^
| September 2, 2003
| APRIL CASTRO, AP
Posted on 09/02/2003 3:49:09 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: sharkhawk
Texas History is taught in the 7th grade.
21
posted on
09/02/2003 5:13:17 AM PDT
by
mathluv
To: Cincinatus' Wife
Old text books can be a nightmare. I taught my kids from their "first, second, third, etc... grade reader" series which were from my grandmother. They were published in 1908. The problem was that the third grade reader contained vocabulary and sentence structure used in college courses. In other words it took a hundred years to dumb a college course down to the third grade level.
As to the number of dairy groups served a day, or the treatments for AIDS, just what the hell does that have to do with education?
If you use text books from the late 1800's and early 1900's, you'll get a college education by the eighth grade.
22
posted on
09/02/2003 5:19:29 AM PDT
by
blackdog
("I hope that it's only amnesia, my friends think I'm permanantly insane")
To: Lil'freeper
I question just how outdated these books are (other than falling apart at the seams) and suspect it's more an exercise in updating 'spin' and dumbing down content. Literature and history texts don't need changing- unless there are too many white guys cited. Not to mention the money funneled into publishing firms which, I'm sure you have noticed, are churning out the LIBERAL point of view every chance they get.
To: dawn53
Saxon math has never met the standards set by the state. It has little or no problem solving. As for the empahsis on estimating, I don't know what book she is using. That is not the emphasis of TAKS.
24
posted on
09/02/2003 5:20:03 AM PDT
by
mathluv
To: mathluv
Saxon math has never met the standards set by the state. Again, no textbook meets standards, except the ones placed by college educated elites. The best textbooks in the world can not hold a candle to a teacher that can light-up a classroom.
I know, when I taught Digital Electronics, I told my students that if they open the book other than to answer the questions, they wouldn't learn a thing. I invented a method of converting decimal to binary in seconds, made karnaugh maps a breeze, and we built fighting robots at the end of the class. The students had the time of their lives.
When I taught computer repair, there wasn't one textbook on the market that was close in covering the skills that they would need. I told the students that the books they were force to buy were for reference only. Ditto for networking technology.
25
posted on
09/02/2003 5:39:21 AM PDT
by
BushCountry
(To the last, I will grapple with Democrats. For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at Liberals.)
To: mathluv
Saxon math has never met the standards set by the state. It has little or no problem solvingWe did at least 25, usually 30 problems per day in each Saxon lesson.
Practice problems on material learned that day (about 5), then 20-30 more problems to solve that included new concepts plus mixed review of familiar concepts.
You sure you're talking about Saxon????
26
posted on
09/02/2003 5:52:32 AM PDT
by
dawn53
To: blackdog
Old text books can be a nightmare. I taught my kids from their "first, second, third, etc... grade reader" series which were from my grandmother. They were published in 1908. The problem was that the third grade reader contained vocabulary and sentence structure used in college courses. In other words it took a hundred years to dumb a college course down to the third grade level. But, dumbing down school and college serves one great purpose - to provide job security for the teachers' union membership and for the Vietman protesters/college professors. Very self-serving circle of educrats, but little benefit to those that they are entrusted to teach.
27
posted on
09/02/2003 5:59:55 AM PDT
by
meyer
To: BushCountry
Someone asked about the math method, so I decided to post it. I don't know if invented is the correct word, but I never seen a teacher or textbook used my method. It is just a simple way to do the binary to decimal conversion in your head, works great for IP addresses. };O)
It is a lot easier to explain in front of a classroom then put in text message, but I will try.
Here is the binary string (a byte): 10101000
Start from the left and work your way right.
Mutliply the first number by 2.
Add the second digit to the total.
Mutliply the total by 2.
Add the third digit to the total.
Repeat until you reach the end.
You can do this in your head.
Example above 10101000 - 2,5,10,21,42,84,168 <-- Answer.
Another Example - 11001101 - 3,6,12,25,51,102,205 <---Answer.
Things to remember: If the binary number ends in a 1 the total will be odd. In fact, whenever the number is a one in the binary string the total will be odd. See the above examples. With practice you can convert long binary strings in seconds to decimal without a calculator, provided you can multiply by two.
28
posted on
09/02/2003 6:16:06 AM PDT
by
BushCountry
(To the last, I will grapple with Democrats. For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at Liberals.)
To: sharkhawk
Why would the current attorney general of Texas be in a HISTORY book?Because TX (and CA) buy so many textbooks. And there, to a large extent, is a large part of the problem.
29
posted on
09/02/2003 6:18:57 AM PDT
by
mewzilla
To: Thebaddog
Good idea. My children's grammar text is about 100 years old. The date on our communications book is from the 1960's. Science needs to be updated every 5 years, though. History books could be used for 20 years, if an update was thrown in every two years.
30
posted on
09/02/2003 6:36:37 AM PDT
by
Marie
(Klingon at heart...)
To: dawn53
You are so right; Saxon is the best. My daughter is 11 and entering a private school calssroom for the first time today. I've been homeschooling her with Saxon until now. So far, she has out scored EVERY child in the school in the math portion of the entrance exams, even children three years her senior.
31
posted on
09/02/2003 6:42:07 AM PDT
by
Marie
(Klingon at heart...)
To: Behind Liberal Lines
They usually cut bus service first, just to sock it to the parents.
Public education is a racket.
32
posted on
09/02/2003 6:58:44 AM PDT
by
ladylib
To: Cincinatus' Wife; *Education News
Bump & Ping
33
posted on
09/02/2003 7:02:59 AM PDT
by
EdReform
(Support Free Republic - Become a Monthly Donor)
To: BushCountry
Only 10 kinds of people, those who know binary and those who don't.
34
posted on
09/02/2003 7:11:03 AM PDT
by
dfwgator
To: dfwgator
When I first seen that quote on one of my students t-shirts, it took me 1010b2 seconds to figure it out, but once I did, I said, "Wow, that's cool."
35
posted on
09/02/2003 7:20:41 AM PDT
by
BushCountry
(To the last, I will grapple with Democrats. For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at Liberals.)
To: Cincinatus' Wife
Other generic headlines:
Pope condemns violence
Bengals lose by three touchdowns
Pauly Shore's new movie is an insult to intelligence
Dennis Rodman arrested for bizarre behavior
Clinton claims problems are Bush's fault
Hundreds killed in disaster in India
Millions starving in Africa
Unemployment rate has economists concerned
To: Cincinatus' Wife
Maybe they should have bought books instead of spending in other areas.Agreed, there are too many people working in the school districts making six figures that are not really contributing directly or indirectly to education. It seems like way too many districts have way too much overhead when you reach the admin level.
You know what's really sad? Your liable to have kids who don't pay attention to the world around them read about President Reagan in the outdated books and think he's still the President, or think that the President Bush they are reading about is still the same President Bush today.
I remember doing some volunteer work with one of my daughter's teachers, and she was running the kids through a current events exercise, and the hot topic in the news was the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. She started off with a very simple question : Which nation did the Soviet Union just invade? (keep in mind these were high school kids 10th grade level). The first person to answer said Australia, the second one said "no it's Austria". The teacher just had this look of suprise on her face. I kept thinking "The Australians and Austrians are going to be very surprised to hear about this".
To: dawn53
Yes/1 To start with, 5 problems may not be enough to develop understanding of a new concept. The review is the strong point of Saxon. And there is an extreme shortage of problem solving. PS is not just a word problem, that they know they will use the concept being taught. PS should require thinking. That has always been Saxon's weak point. And he would not change to meet state requirements.
38
posted on
09/02/2003 2:23:01 PM PDT
by
mathluv
To: mewzilla
Yes, TX is the leading purchaser of textbooks. The TX AG is in the book because TX history is taught at grade 7.
39
posted on
09/02/2003 2:25:16 PM PDT
by
mathluv
To: At _War_With_Liberals
New books mean latest leftist agendas.
Yup. The textbook publishers get rich in collusion with the PC-police... all paid for by the taxpayer.
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