Anonymous Patron writes “A bill requiring school textbooks to be no longer than 200 pages was tabled this week after generating volumes of scorn since passing the Assembly.
But the bill’s sponsor said raising a big stink over big books made it a success.
“I’m trying to push that textbooks need to change,” said Rep. Jackie Goldberg, D-Los Angeles, chairwoman of the Assembly’s Education Committee.
More from California in the Press-Telegram – News“
Something should be done…
By the time I hit high school, I had friends and acquaintances starting to suffer from back problems normally associated with people twice and three times their age. Turns out it had a lot to do with needing to carry around thick, massive textbooks from middle school on. Kids like me who started into the so-called honours system of classes found ourselves “privileged” with far bigger textbooks than kids in the regular classes. My biology textbook from 9th grade could be used to kill a full grown man. Oh yeah, I had seven classes so that only multiplied the load.
My good friend actually carried two backbacks with him. He was a large kid, probably six foot two inches, weighed somewhere in the neighbourhood of 280 – 300 pounds. By the end of the day his back was dead and his legs were gelatin. He stayed in honours classes and his back just got worse until graduation.
Me, I realized early on that honours classes don’t mean, if you’ll excuse the expression, jack shit when you get into college. I took history classes through the International Baccalaureate and I gotta say two things: The textbook was too heavy and the class was absolutely useless when I got to college. All the things they said were “college requirements” weren’t even discussed. Meanwhile, I watched my mates go to chiropractic appointments before they were old enough to drive themselves.
Re:Something should be done…
Can’t they just break them down into multi-volumes?
It’s cheaper
If you don’t. And it’s harder to insure that the school district adopts every volume of a multivolume set.
Kids should be allowed hand-trucks, if they’re gonna make things heavy for them. I’m of the opinion that lockers and other stuff should be allowed – if not two sets of textbooks: one for home and one for school, if that’s going to be an issue.
— Ender, Duke_of_URL
Books are one thing
Each of my daughter’s middle school teachers required she carry two separate notebooks per subject (one for “journaling”–even math can be journaled, it seems), plus at least one folder, plus an assignment book. It was more for one class than I carried in a looseleaf notebook (!) for all my classes in high school. Yes, one teacher even required a brandname monstrosity, not tripperkipper but close, just for one middle school subject.
Ask me for backpack ratings–we went through plenty before she became totally disaffected in high school. Only journal she will keep is livejournal.
All of which leads me to applaud those schools that are giving kids laptops and access to ebooks. So much more sensible in so many ways, even if they do make them journal about trig.
HS sucks
And it appears to have gotten even worse since I got out.
— Ender, Duke_of_URL
Re:Something should be done…
I still have my Anatomy & Physiology textbook from Junior year of high school It is 378 pages. It has the best description and illustration of the Krebs cycle I have ever seen. I used it when I taught the A&P lab at the local junior college.
BFD, books are heavy, get a wheeled briefcase if you can’t carry them. Holy locker combination Batman, you don’t have to take every one of them home every day. Budget your time.
The local high school is oddly called Palm Harbor University High School for reasons I will never understand. It is not a university, it is not on the campus of a university, it is not within 30 miles of a university but PHUHS it is. They have an IB program. It is neither international as they don’t go anywhere, nor do they get a Bachelor’s degree. More BS feel good about yourself nonsense.
The next school has a medical magnet program. They shadow physicians for a week and get academic credit. When I was about 10 I used to ride around with the garbage man on Thursday mornings in summer. I thought crushing stuff with those big vise like jaws was fantastic and Buck often let me do it. I got on the truck at my house, and off at the end of the subdivision. To his credit Buck did ask my mom if it was OK if I tagged along. But I never got school credit for it. Medical magnet my arse, these kids don’t come out doctors, or nurses, or even nurses aids. They just take chem and anatomy and biology and calculus..same stuff I did but we didn’t have a catchy name. We just had nuns.
Re:Something should be done…
But they do have to carry most of them all day, middle school and 9th and 10th. Most teachers require they bring the text–points off if found without it! And could be their locker is on the fourth floor, where they have exactly one single class (in all four years).
My daughter and her friends actually refer to “freshman backpack” as a disease. The wheeled bags have too much metal to make it through the metal detectors. Yes, you could arrive at school half an hour early every day just to get your backpack through and be on time, but I didn’t get that supermotivated teen.
My daughter’s experiences, at the highly-touted magnet academic high school here, did take me right back to all the reasons I hated high school. But I also have worked with lots of teens (hundreds, actually) at the library. There are great stressors now–metal detectors, shootings, friends enlisting and shipping right out to Iraq, over-programmed kids…some can handle it, but I see a lot of them breaking down one way or another (physical, emotional, spiritual, whatever) before they hit 25. We (libraryland) should be giving them all the breaks we can.
Re:Something should be done…
BFD, books are heavy, get a wheeled briefcase if you can’t carry them. Holy locker combination Batman, you don’t have to take every one of them home every day. Budget your time.
Wow. Spoken like someone who has no idea what high school is like these days. Even when I was in high school over a decade ago, there was a large disproportionate ratio between the number of students and the number of lockers available. Many students, including myself and my friends, didn’t have lockers. We did have to take most of our books home every day, or at least we did if we wanted decent grades.
And as far as budgeting our time goes, we had ten minutes to go from a classroom on the first floor of a building that was a full city block away from our next class which happened to be on the third floor of another building. All the while you have to work your way through crowded halls overfilled with students because, after all, when you overfill a school you overfill the halls. Oh and for god’s sake, don’t run! Don’t run! Someone might get hurt. Never mind that you need to make it to that class on time because the teacher will literally lock you out if you’re late.
And finally, in regards to the wheeled backpacks, where do you think those came from? Ten years ago the only thing with wheels was Samsonite. It was my generation’s back problems that provided a need for wheeled backpacks. And, oh yeah, get those monsters through the metal detectors found in a lot of schools now and make it to class on time.
I’m very happy you had nuns. Not all of us had the privilege of attending a Catholic school. The realities are far different in public schools where I think you’ll find far more students than you’ll ever see in a Catholic school.