All Posts Tagged With: "textbook"

Promiscuity defined

When I was studying for my Evolution exam last week, I noticed something strange in the textbook: it referred to female prairie dogs as “promiscuous.” Seriously.

Apparently, by mating with multiple partners in a short period of time, they increase the chances of pregnancy. It’s an evolutionary adaptation that’s been in the making for millions of years.

The word “promiscuous” just seems like a weird way to describe the behavior. It’s just such a loaded word. Like the textbook is calling these prairie dogs skanks, or something.

-Photo courtesy of cliff1066™

Being from the 19th century is no excuse

I just finished reading a chapter in my psychology textbook. It gave an overview of the history of psychology, including the work of Freud. It described him as the “father of modern psychology,” and praised him for his “innovative ideas that continue to influence psychology, science, and the world at large.” And then it went on to describe some of his “revolutionary” theories.

After reading about the psychoanalytic perspective, I’m not exactly sure if “revolutionary” is quite the right way to describe Freud’s theories.

I’m thinking more along the lines of “totally bizarre, freaky, and creepy.”

A quick summary of Freud’s ideas:

1. All boys want to marry their moms and kill their dads.
2. There’s no such thing as a seemingly-innocent pencil collection.
3. Your 18 month-old brother is going through an Oral stage, soon to be followed by an Anal stage, Phallic stage, and eventually a Genital stage.

Yeah, sure, it’s easy to dismiss and ridicule the ideas of someone from the 19th century. And sure, Freud did have some really important ideas. He explored the “unconscious” aspect of the human mind. He defined and conceptualized personality structures and stages. He just went a little overboard.

But let’s face it: early physicists, biologists, or astronomers from the 19th century weren’t freaks. It’s just early psychologists. Namely Freud.

Consider Sir Isaac Newton. When he proposed the idea of universal gravitation, he didn’t go off the deep end and suggest that objects are gravitationally attracted to one another because they’re going through a Phallic stage. Or because the Earth has repressed feelings of love for its mother and wants to kill its father.

Newton understood the difference between “scientific theory” and “revealing that I probably murdered my own father.”

When a textbook’s bias is obvious

I always thought university textbooks were supposed to be objective. An unbiased source of information.

Until my history textbook referred to someone as a “mama’s boy.” Seriously.

According to the textbook, Ibbi-Sin, a king from the Dynasty of Ur, wasn’t just an incompetent ruler. He was “something of a mama’s boy.”

The term “mama’s boy” sounds like a subjective judgement, as opposed to an objective statement of fact. Sure, I know everyone has a bias. Even textbook authors. But I figured that university textbooks should at least appear to be making an attempt at sounding neutral. You know, something more along the lines of ‘attachment disorder’ or ‘parent-child relationship psychosis.’

When I saw that pharse, I was startled. If a history textbook is going to insult someone, I thought they’d call them “inadequate” or “inept.” My textbook is breaking the rules.

That Alexander guy who took over Egypt? A mega-jerk.

Aristotle thought there were only five elements. What a moron!

And Gandhi, whining about human rights and junk. Talk about a cry-ass.

At least I know what I DON’T want to be when I grow up

The best part about a summer job isn’t making money to pay for textbooks. It’s the fact that by the end of the summer, you’ll absolutely know which jobs you don’t want later in life.

And after two months of summer vacation, I’m not sure which is worse: lawn mowing or babysitting.

When my parents put me in charge of my three younger brothers, it’s easy. If David won’t give Michael a turn on the Xbox 360, I don’t have to reason with him. I don’t have to bother with any of that ‘time-out’ fussiness. I just punch him in the gut and say, “It’s Michael’s turn. Get off.”

But when I’m babysitting other people’s kids? Suddenly I can’t operate an efficient dictatorship. There’s no gut punching allowed. And if I’m babysitting kids under the age of five, there’s no escaping the Eight Million Questions game.

“Why does the fridge make a humming noise?”

“Where was I before I was born?”

“Do hamsters get married?”

That’s the great thing about mowing lawns. When I’m cutting someone’s grass, I never have to worry about their five-year-old interrogating me.

Instead, I have to put up with their dogs.

The first time someone told me, “Don’t mind my kids, they just like to run around the backyard,” I assumed they were talking about, well, their kids. But apparently, some people consider furry, ball-licking, ass-sniffing animals to be their kids.

The friendly kids are the worst.

It’s a $500 surprise. Without the chocolate.

I still remember a textbook from my grade six class, almost seven years ago.

One of the questions at the end of a chapter asked: “What do you think the year 2000 will be like? What sort of technology will be available to everyday people? How different will it be from today?”

And yes, my grade six class was reading this in the year 2002.

The textbook had a couple follow up questions:

“What sort of transportation will be available in the year 2000?”

“Describe the clothing that people will wear.”

“Have you seen Scott Dobson-Mitchell’s new cartoon blog?”

Today, the only prediction we can make with any confidence is that some time in the future, Will Smith is going to save the world from a battalion of killer robots led by a giant computer that kinda looks like it’s from the Wizard of Oz.

And according to an article from the Wall Street Journal, lugging textbooks around campus will soon be a thing of the past.

Using the Kindle DX, a new portable device from Amazon.com Inc. that launches this summer, students can conveniently access their university textbooks from electronic-book readers.

Judging by the pictures, the Kindle DX seems like the perfect size. Its screen is large, but overall it’s still small enough to fit in a messenger bag along with your pencil case and a lunch kit.

The device is described as being “geared towards textbooks and newspapers.” Adobe Acrobat files can automatically be displayed, and the wireless service that allows users to download materials is free.

The only problem: the Kindle DX costs about $500. Which puts it in laptop territory. Except it can’t display videos.

Or colour images.

Sure, some people might be willing to pay lots of money for a useless gadget. But only if it has a cool name.

“Kindle” kind of sounds like a small chocolate egg with a plastic toy inside.

I just finished my last religious studies reading. Out of all the textbooks, tutorial manuals and lab books this past year, this has to be my favourite sentence: “The relationship of the daughter to the father is that of filiation.” Filiation? That’s a word? Really? To me, ‘Filiation’ sounds like a way to describe how [...]

I just finished my last religious studies reading. Out of all the textbooks, tutorial manuals and lab books this past year, this has to be my favourite sentence:

“The relationship of the daughter to the father is that of filiation.”

Filiation? That’s a word?

Really?

To me, ‘Filiation’ sounds like a way to describe how full you are. Like after a handful of macadamia nuts, you’re ‘filiated.’ Heck, when someone isn’t cooperating during interrogation, why bother pulling fingernails- just ‘filiate’ them. With some macadamia nuts.

They’ll tell everything.

And surprisingly well-written

Describing a school textbook as “well written” would have seemed bizarre back in high school. Kind of like saying that the instructions on the back of a tile cleaner has a thrilling narrative. Maybe it’s just the new sense of ownership, but all of my university textbooks are actually really interesting.

Sure, I didn’t exactly spend the last few weeks of my summer vacation exploring my chemistry textbook. And I’m not claiming I’d ever buy any of these really expensive books if I didn’t have to. I can think of way more “interesting’” books to buy if I somehow found myself in Chapters with $1,400+ to spend. But unlike any textbook from high school, my political sciences textbook, as one example, is surprisingly well-written.

One chapter outlined the differences between studying political history and studying scientific history. The author explained how, when a new discovery is made in science, it obliterates everything that came before it. When scientific history is taught, it’s basically along the lines of, “People in the 16th century thought is was possible to transform lead into gold. Isn’t that cute?” The author argued that politics, on the other hand, is a continuing conversation. When someone has a new idea, unlike in science, it’s just a contribution to the conversation.

Never mind the fact that university textbooks seem more interesting than high school textbooks. After more than 12 years of public school, I learned to equate “textbook” with “public bathroom.” As in, they’re both usually covered in graffiti. And could use a good hosing. But now that I’m in university, I suddenly own my textbooks.

Meaning, for the first time ever, there aren’t any skeletal remains of a muffin or cookie in the spines of my books.