Monday, November 11, 2013

A Textbook, You Say?

Oh, it's the teachers' fault!



We're nothing if not helpful at WCT, so we're going to give the Illinois State Board of Education and CPS a heads up: when you inevitably recommend that force schools to adopt Pearson Education and their array of CCSS products and those products just, well, suck: don't blame the teachers! 

New York City educators have pointed out numerous problems with some of Pearson's materials. Teachers found questions unrelated to the reading, missing pages within books, and tasks that were not age-appropriate such as kindergartners drawing the meanings of words like "responsibility" and "distance."

In an unoriginal move, Pearson's PR department along with the NYC Board of Ed. chose to blame these hiccups screw-ups on...teachers! Thanks, guys. Apparently, these "new" textbooks, teachers' guides and worksheets may have caused teachers to "struggle" in their implementation. Yes, because textbooks are so tricky.

Here's another tip: if it's one thing teachers aren't confused about, it's how textbooks work. Teachers struggle with textbooks because they're not very good or outdated, not because they don't get their function. 

After all, if teachers can navigate bullshit initiatives, ever-changing administrative directives, and unstable work environments, crappy textbooks are no problem. Try again, Pearson.

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