#textbook problems

[batcoins]

I’m reading a chapter about listening skills for my business communications class, and it’s one of the most blatantly ableist things I can remember reading. Direct quote: “If you find that you must rely on others or on memos to ensure that you are on top of important events, or if these events pass you by, you can take this as a sign of poor listening.”

Or, y’know, disabilities that affect memory. But whatever.

[traveling-spartan]

Found this in a high-school statistics textbook

“My grandmother once told me that the color red makes bees angry. Here’s a method I’ve designed to test her claim. I’ll select half of my students (by drawing names from a hat) to wear red clothes and the other half to wear white clothes. Then I’ll turn a bunch of bees loose in our classroom and record how many times each student is stung.”

... I’m sorry, what?

[teknopathetic]

oops

[toomanyskeletons]

So y'al know about those crazy ass textbook questions where the dude buys 75 packets of biscuits or whatever One time there was one in my textbook where there was a guy who was driving a tractor at 125km/ph A TRACTOR FOR FARMING AT 125 KILOMETRES PER HOUR THAT'S LIKE 115 MILES PER HOUR OR SOMETHING I DON'T KNOW BUT IT WAS HELLA FAST

[saphura]

I had to go and get one of my textbooks replaced because half of a chapter had been replaced with half a chapter from a completely different book (Ancient Greece has nothing to do with post-communist East Europe!). So when I handed my book in, they handed me a new one with the exact same problem. So Now I have a used book which has all the right chapters in all the right places.

[nearlyisms]

Disclaimer: I teach at a major university in the United States, in the "sciences."

After a visit to the campus bookstore today, I pretty much wanted to hit someone.  Students have been getting robbed for far too long.  My war on high textbook prices starts this semester.

1. I will email students before the semester starts and tell them to buy their books at Chegg or Amazon or somewhere else online.  There is no point to paying $200 for something new you can have mailed to you for $50 used.

2. And even more, I will change my reading assignments so that older versions of the book are acceptable.  If you can buy it for $20, it's even better.

We are stealing money from our students, and it's fucking pathetic.  I promise that it won't happen in my classes any longer.

[mokonahapuuuuuu]

I spent good money on that big fat dictionary, I'm not going to get a new smaller one, I hardly ever used it when I was at SAIT 

[aromvtic]

I need my textbook and I don't know why I didn't choose expedited shipping. I am regretting my choice right now. I do have the PDF version of it, but I prefer to have the physical hardcover to look at. -sigh-