[Textbook-l] distinct books

Thu Aug 14 02:26:46 UTC 2003

On Wed, Aug 13, 2003 at 06:47:22PM -0700, Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
> I'm sorry if this letter sounded like a
> conspiricy-theory rant and I'm paranoid, but that's
> just what it seems like. So I don't think we should be
> aiming at schools. Maybe colleges or homeschoolers? In
> colleges, the professors pick out the textbooks, and
> they look around for the best one, unlike gradeschool
> teachers who have no power over the issue whatsoever.
> Homeschoolers tend to dislike textbooks, but that's
> probably because they're so terribly written. Or we
> could go for a place where this censorship isn't so
> bad, possible Europe or Canada?

In Poland getting recommendation from Ministry of Education
is quite easy, and you can find textbooks that fit
almost any bias you like (it's harder to get npov one),
as long as it more or less (usually less) fits frame curriculum.

Ministry only makes frame curriculum for public schools,
and doesn't even seriously enforce that. Recently they started
publishing much more detailed requirements ("syllabus") for state exam
taken after high school ("matura"), but it's only indirectly
related to textbooks.

In all schools it's the teacher who selects the textbook,
whether it has Ministry's recommendation or not. Very often it doesn't,
especially with imported textbooks for foreign language classes.