Click here to find the comments for this topic

I'll be interested to hear what J.D. (Math and Text) has to say about this.

I was thinking about my reaction to the new Saxon Math web site by Harcourt Achieve, which bought Saxon Math a couple of years ago.

I was very upset by the web site, and I found my reaction curious. I felt like I was overreacting (something I rarely do, by the way.)

Suddenly it came to me. I've mentioned my loathing--not too strong a word--for the look and feel of American textbooks more than once. Normally I explain the problem as a gratuitously increased cognitive load on the student, because it takes mental energy to filter out distracting stimuli. When you try to learn math from a wildly over-illustrated textbook, you have to devote mental resources both to seeing the math and to not seeing all the other crud strewn all over the page.

I'm sure my increased cognitive load theory is true, as far as it goes. I've also mentioned that my sister, when she taught elementary school math, would actually Xerox the relevant pages from the textbook, cut out all the gratuitous illustrations, glue what was left onto a white piece of paper, and then re-Xerox. She gave her kids the clean, crisp, black-and-white pages. That way they had a fighting chance of actually learning some math.

Gratuitously increased cognitive load is a HUGE problem in American textbooks.

After I saw the stock photographs of Beaming Learners on Saxon-Harcourt Achieve, I realized there's another problem, too.

It's the Cable TV problem, the experience of being stuck watching one single, low-budget ad that's repeated over and over and over and over again on every commercial break. Trapped.

That's what American textbooks are like, for me. They are all exactly the same, and they are all awful to look at. Every publisher buys the same stock photos of the same stock learners and plasters them all over the same stock page layouts of the same stock books.

This week my neighbor brought over the English language arts book Christopher will be using two weeks from now, and if it didn't have lots of words & no numbers on the pages I wouldn't be able to tell it apart from the math book.

Looking at these books, it's hard for me to see any content at all. It all looks like the same content, the same book over and over.

What was that David Byrne line?

Same as it ever was?

TRAILBLAZERS has terrific design

I forgot to mention: TRAILBLAZERS looks completely different from all other textbooks.

No photographs; all original art work. Quite a lot of white space on the pages.

Plus the font selection is interesting & fun.

TRAILBLAZERS is the only contemporary textbook--mainstream textbook--I've ever seen that's inviting.

update

I can't find images of the TRAILBLAZER 'Student Guide' online, but I did find quite a few copies of the various Implementation Guides, Teacher Guides, TIMS Tutors, etc.

This one is very nicely laid out:

Math Facts (pdf file)

-- CatherineJohnson - 18 Aug 2005

Back to: Main Page.