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Re: Review of Middle School Physical Science Texts (part 2)



I must correct myself. The Hubisz report *did* look at such things as
the pedagogical appropriateness and the attractiveness of the texts
reviewed. Whike attractiveness is important in getting students to
pick up the books in the first place, my impression is that they are
all attractive. The unfortunate part of the books is that their
beauty *is* only skin deep, so I wouldn't put much score on this
aspect. As for the pedagogical appropriateness, I would hope that
those of the reviewers who have middle school experience would have
concentrated on that area. There is a lot that we can say about that
even if we don't have lots of direct middle school experience. Most
of us have known middle school-age children, often they are our own.
If we are observant, we can get a pretty good idea of what types of
material is appropriate for them. Add a little classroom experience
to that and you have a pretty good mix, I think. However, I hope that
John's impression that there are no middle school teachers (or former
teachers) among the reviewers proves to be not true.

As for the factual nature of the textbooks, which has gotten by far
the majority of the press play, my comments in my previous post on
this subject are, I believe, still relevant.

Hugh
--

Hugh Haskell
<mailto://haskell@ncssm.edu>
<mailto://hhaskell@mindspring.com>

(919) 467-7610

Let's face it. People use a Mac because they want to, Windows because they
have to..
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