#school textbooks

[stone-cold-groove]

Page from the children’s textbook, Your Wonderful World of Science. Random House - 1957.

[quillify-tries-to-talk]

Hey so I would like to say that the way schools taught us environmental science in 4th or 5th grade has honestly fucked me up.

Throughout my growing years, our textbooks gave us the details of global warming, ozone layer degeneration, soil erosion, water scarcity and poverty, melting of glaciers and polar ice caps, oil spills, poaching of wildlife and how we are slowly but surely killing everyone on this planet including ourselves. And that was fine. Kids do deserve to know what is going on in this world. They have every right to.

But I have a huge problem with how every goddamn school textbook presented this entire climate crisis as the fault of middle and lower class citizens. Not once did the books mention about the politicians and corporations and billionaires and industries who have never cared about the well-being of the planet and just want to make a quick and cheap buck and speed off.

It's the way they placed the entire... sort of responsibility on us. Little kids. Eight or nine year olds. Even the teachers said stuff like, "do this and it'll help earth! Stop eating/drinking/doing/buying that! You're harming the planet."

And I internalized every single thing. It has messed me up so much that I can't enjoy a night of junk food and watching TV or look at my phone without feeling guilty. I keep trying to resist buying stuff for myself. I look at my feed and am held by this wave of despair that I'm helpless. I can't watch wildlife documentaries without flinching at the statistics. All those textbook tricks never made an impact because there were already people out there who could've done something but they are actively refusing to do so.

And with the pandemic, it's worse. My country is in utter hell and all I can do is sit at home and watch it all happen. I can't do a thing. The fucking Prime Minister of the country absolved himself of all responsibilities and placed the blame and onus on common citizens and state governments. Literal kids are doing more than our central government, who just want more profit and more votes in the upcoming elections.

Please, please, if you have kids or even younger siblings, teach them to recognize manipulative language in their school materials.

Elders keep asking why today's kids are so apathetic; we're not. We're just tired of seeing you all destroy this world and then place the responsibility on us.

[ravenclawravings]

Slytherin: This is the textbook we're supposed to use.

Ravenclaw: It's older than our professor, don't you think we should ask if there's anything newer?

Slytherin: Well...

Ravenclaw: I'm going to mess around and see what happens.

Slytherin: ...please don't.

[stone-cold-groove]

Cover of the children’s textbook, Your Wonderful World of Science. Random House - 1957.

[stone-cold-groove]

Page from the children’s textbook, Your Wonderful World of Science. Random House - 1957.

[gwydionmisha]

Amendments to school textbooks by Syria's new authorities draw outcry

Changes include removing content 'glorifying' Assad regime and references to women, love and pre-Islamic gods