Yowling Rant

[Alelou]

That thesis probably applies well to Crime and Punishment, too, if you substitute 'science' for 'pagan'.

I don't entirely follow your point about the founding fathers, though. They wanted freedom from a legally-mandated religion, but I believe that translates just fine into "freedom of religion."

"Freedom from religion" sounds like something you wish you had when two Jehovah's Witnesses corner you at the beach, but I believe that actually would infringe on freedom of religion.

(Really nice place to get your witnessing quota done, huh? LOL. That literally happened to me one day when I was trying to catch a little fish in a cup in the shallows at Clearwater Beach.)

[honeybee]

When I taught college comp in Mississippi, I had a persistent problem with students who could not differentiate between preaching religion versus discussing religion in an academic context. Generally, it ended with me getting a call from their ministers. Thank goodness for Ferpa, so I didn't have to talk to the ministers. But I while I was not allowed, as a state employee, from interfering with the students' religious opinions (good), I was allowed to tell them that their ideas could only be expressed in an academic style argument. Aquarius, your paper would totally be allowed, as it was based on evidence and intelligently argued.

I also remember a math teacher I had in a public high school in Texas, who liked to letter the points of shapes in geometry things like J E S U S and A N G E L and H E A V E N. Before I could complain, Josh Goldstein did and she stopped. But the teacher was a sourpuss the rest of the semester.

CW, my advice is approach the teacher in a reasonable way first and let her know your concerns. It's very possible the lesson was poorly worded/not well thought out and the teacher meant no harm by it. It could even been a function of a badly -worded study question or something. How the teacher reacts to your concerns will let you know what was in her head, and then you can decide if you want to pursue the matter with her boss or not.

[Aquarius]

Conceptually, people often interpret "freedom of religion" to mean you can do anything you want, based on religious freedom. It is this reasoning that fueled the justification members of a certain fundamentalist denomination (which I won't name) to show up in my friend John's yard, shouting "Repent! Repent! Repent!" and causing a scene in the whole neighborhood. Earlier that day they had sent door-to-door redeemers through the neighborhood, and when John had tried to politely decline, then firmly decline (multiple times), they still woudn't go away even after he'd shut the door on them. Finally in a fit of frustration he'd told them he was an ordained minister through the Church of Satan--he was only 17 at the time, home alone, and probably would've handled the situation much differently today, but that's neither here nor there, because this congregation obviously believes that "freedom of religion" means that they have the right to harass other people until they go along with their beliefs, because their religion says they're supposed to.

The founding fathers did not intend for our "religious freedom" to infringe on other people's rights to follow what *they* believe.

Any way, before this gets blown too close to crossing the line into a "hot button" topic since we were initially discussing this in an academic context, I meant "freedom *from* religion" in that there is not supposed to be a government-sanctioned religion. nor is there supposed to be undue social pressure to conform to a particular religion in situations like, say, a public school setting as the one that sparked this topic, or one like my friend John's situation where they trespass and make a public nuisance by disrupting a neighborhood to get one more convert--people have a right to *not* to have to put up with that. So I guess I'm saying my point in bringing it up was more about interfering with someone's freedom of choice vs. religion itself. It isn't acceptable no matter what you do it in the name of.

The point of CW bringing this up was more about how to handle the teacher and did the teacher cross the line, and I think honeybee's advice is the best. Just go talk to her. My gut instinct is this is simply a case of something seeming obvious and clear in the teacher's head, but not someone else's. Like when two people can read the same passage and get two totally different things out of it, because their heads are in totally different places when it happens.

[Aquarius]

New rant: the price of TEXTBOOKS!!!

OMG, I about died at the bookstores yesterday. Last fall, it didn't seem so bad. I only had three courses. I got out of it for about $!50-$200--I don't remember exactly, but this was two used books, one new book (we were required to have the current edition for the computer class) and one coursepack. Fine. Didn't seem so out of line.

Last winter, it was more like $400!! But, I had to have something like four books for my Writing about Literature class, and my psych book was brand new because my financial aid money came through on the first day of class, and by the time I could go get books the used ones were gone. So while i wasn't happy about how much I spent, there at least seemed to be a logical explanation between the volume of books purchased and the newness of the biggest book I had to buy. And it was hardcover, so I figured that factored in, too.

Yesterday--almost $500, on one lousy coursepack that wasn't even as nicely put together and bound like the computer one from last year, and four softcover books that aren't very big at all--and one of which is only RENTED!!

It's such a racket. No wonder fewer and fewer people have the money to go to college any more. As it is I figure I'll be paying on loans until I'm dead.

[Alelou]

It is appalling. Let's hope your Native American Lit prof took pity on you and just found another way to get you the info. After all, a lot of the older stuff may be public domain.

Hope you cover Sherman Alexie, though, and he won't be yet. He's so fun.

It can pay to ask the prof. In my Comp 102 class I'm required to assign a certain grammar handbook on my Syllabus, but in class I tell them any grammar handbook that has the MLA 2008 update is fine by me, and just going online is fine too. The reader already has more grammar lessons than I'm going to teach in it, and they're better than the ones in the handbook. Most of the students still have their 101 handbook, but if not I don't see any point at all in them spending the money for something we're not really going to use.

I do remember, though, getting into trouble in grad school when I bought an edition of Portrait of a Lady that had a completely different ending than the edition the prof was using. Boy, was that a bizarre seminar discussion, until we figured out what had happened.

[Silverbullet]

Books were a serious part of the cost of putting my
daughter through College. Couldn't believe the cost. 60-100 dollar texts especially those writtten by the profs.

[honeybee]

I am lucky enough to be able to assign whatever comp handbook I want, so I choose one that is a bargain at $20. The textbook I choose is $55, which is steep but the best I can do. MLA, APA and Chicago all charge a mint to republish their rules. Comp textbooks are expensive. Although, I'd buy one without those rules and just use our library website (which also has to pay to publish that stuff). It's just that those don't seem to exist.

I'm very resentful of textbook companies, and yet I also feel for the authors of textbooks, who also get stiffed for their hard work by the companies. The writers make pennies for every dollar that the textbook company makes. I still encourage my students to sell back their textbooks. Composition textboooks are expensive to produce, and they often anthologize work by writers who do deserve payment.

And if you've ever had to deal with a textbook sales person, you'll really get frustrated. They have fancy laptops, blackberries and all sorts of crap with the company logo on it to hand out. I'm always like, why don't they spend less money on sales people (not that I want people to loose their jobs, but they could lose their logo pens) and make the textbooks cheaper. I've never chosen a textbook that was given to me as a freebie or pushed by a saleperson. I've always found them at publishers websites, because I look for very specific things.

This year is the first year that I am not assigning any books for my magazine writing class. And, no, the bookstore didn't inform students of this - so I did get some panicked emails and posted a note on the D2L site. Of course, not buying books means they will have to print out articles each week. But they seem okay with this - and I gave a little lesson on how to save ink and paper and still print stuff out. I still made my advanced students buy an anthology, but it's only $14 at the bookstore and $8 at Amazon.com.

[Alelou]

To defend textbook companies slightly, the textbook market is generally a tiny niche product. Low volume equals high cost. And you do have to pay for editors, designers, marketers, printing, storing, distributing, as well as the whole stable of online ancillary materials that usually come along with the major texts now. However, the profit margin in college textbook publishing is fairly obscene, and it's a real racket how they try to recruit author professors who will require "their" books.

At any rate, they're in a panic these days. Like all publishers, they're facing the imminent demise of their primary product -- paper texts, as well their primary profit model.

[honeybee]

Agreed. I think this is especially true in the case of science textbook, which must be updated constantly - nearly every year these days. Comp textbooks have new editions only every three or four years. And I still appreciate the number of options available to me as a comp teachers. And yes, the companies are in a panic.

Since I don't teach science, I am not sure of the feasibility of moving to an online textbook form for the big sciences like biology and chemistry. My guess is that everyone in those disciplines is thinking hard about that.

Still, just like music companies that charged $19 for CDs and stopped producing singles, and then were shocked to discover that both artists and consumers resented them and happily started downloading - textbook companies have dug themselves into a hole. Fair or not, the markup makes people hate them.

[Aquarius]

Expanding on the music example, those who are willing to pay for their music are happy to have services like iTunes and Amazon where they *can* pay for just that one song they actually want. So while they seemingly stopped making singles (though I do have quite a few "cd singles" in my collection, which are actually more analogous to the 12" vinyl single in that they usually contain several versions of the same song and one "b-side", vs. a 7' "45" single that had the single on one side and one song on the b-side), so the singles didn't stop getting made so much as they transformed into something else along with the technology and demand.

And I understand writers wanting to get paid for what they do. As a wanna-be, I get that, I hope to get paid myself someday. But those profit margins are insane, especially when you consider that those same books get resold over and over again, and you have broke college students who have to figure out a way to pay for it?? Yeah, they *should* be afraid of becoming obsolete! Offer a product people want at a price they can afford, and maybe they won't have so much to worry about!

[aadarshinah]

The worst part about textbook buying is the "recommendeds". You either use a text book or you don't. Randomly assigning one that will, inevitably, prove unhelpful if you buy it and nessicary for class if you don't, is insane.

[enterprikayak]

True dat, mofo.

I always got the "recommended" texts (out of fear) and they were INVARIABLY USELESS.

Like, you've got 10 weeks to shove a certain specific amount of shite into your grey matter. YOU DO NOT HAVE TIME FOR EXTRA SHITE THAT IS IRRELEVANT. AND IF IT *IS* RELEVANT, THEN WTF IS IT *NOT* DOING ON THE REQUIRED LIST?


[/RANT]

[honeybee]

Now that I don't require any books - I do recommend two books (both under $15) as I believe the time and trouble to print out the articles, especially if you are using your own paper, printer and ink, might just make it even steven. But I explain that's the reason why I recommend them.

[Silverbullet]

Article today said the average cost of a textbook in Arizona was 64 dollars. Resale price is 57 dollars. I can see a student wanting to recover as much of his costs as possible but that is a little steep for a used Text.

[Aquarius]

Damn. I should go to school in Arizona, then. I have almost NEVER gotten that much of my money back on resale. In fact, that Very Expensive psych textbook I mentioned from last semester? It was probably about $200. They offered me FIVE BUCKS on buyback, because "nobody is using it next semester."