What are the Most Commonly Used Textbooks in Schools Today?

[courtrigrad]

Hey all

Just thought that I'd start this thread to glean your opinions

 

[Moonbear]

Weeeellllll, back in my day, we didn't have any of these newfangled book things, we had etched stone tablets. And you kids nowadays complain about carrying around heavy textbooks in your backpack, try carrying a stack of stone tablets to school, in snow as deep as you are tall, uphill both ways, without any shoes. If you ask me, the only good book ever made was that Sears Roebuck catalog with the nice soft pages. No good outhouse was without one of those Sears Roebuck catalogs.

Books used for what? I see students with a lot of the same textbooks I used, just I had the first or second edition and they're on the 7th or 10th edition now.

 

[Evo]

I will never forget when I was in third grade and reading our "health" book in school. There was a section where they discussed girls getting their hair "bobbed" and how to pin curl. The book was from the 1920's. It was really relevant.

 

[BobG]

Back in my day, we learned to read from McGuffy's Readers. This was a big improvement over Benjamin Harris's "The Protestant Tutor", which resulted in Harris being arrested, pilloried, and sentenced to two years in jail.

We learned to spell from Noah Webster's "An American Selection of Lessons in Reading and Speaking Calculated to Improve the Minds and Refine the Taste of Youth, and Also to Instruct Them in the Geography, History, and Politics of the United States, To Which Are Prefixed, Rules in Elocution, and Directions for Expressing the Principal Passions of the Mind, Being the Third Part of the Grammatical Institute of the English Language". We called it Noah Webster's Blueback Reader for short, since we couldn't spell half the words in the title.

We also used Samuel Worcester's "A Second Book for Reading and Spelling" and his "A Third Book for Reading and Spelling". We also used Worcester's "A Sequel to The Spelling Book", but the sequel wasn't nearly as good as the original, which was so popular it was always sold out before even one person could buy one.

We learned arithmetic from "The Schoolmaster's Assistant, Being a Compendium of Arithmetic, Both Practical and Theoretical". We couldn't spell that title, either, plus it was often confused with the other schoolmaster's assitant: the wooden yardstick used to whack our fingers with.

We also learned physiology from J.L. Comstock's "Outlines of Physiology", which was intended to be useful, "especially that of females, to the preservation of their forms and their health, by avoiding habits and fashions, which at once deform their persons and ruin their constitutions". This was later condensed and put to music in the song called, "When Irish Girls Grow Up".

 

[Math Is Hard]

hmm.. I do remember some of the English class readings..

8th grade: Beowulf
9th grade: The Metamorphosis
10th grade: Crime and Punishment
11th grade: Canterbury Tales

 

[Evo]

Back in my day, we learned to read from McGuffy's Readers. This was a big improvement over Benjamin Harris's "The Protestant Tutor", which resulted in Harris being arrested, pilloried, and sentenced to two years in jail.

We learned to spell from Noah Webster's "An American Selection of Lessons in Reading and Speaking Calculated to Improve the Minds and Refine the Taste of Youth, and Also to Instruct Them in the Geography, History, and Politics of the United States, To Which Are Prefixed, Rules in Elocution, and Directions for Expressing the Principal Passions of the Mind, Being the Third Part of the Grammatical Institute of the English Language". We called it Noah Webster's Blueback Reader for short, since we couldn't spell half the words in the title.

We also used Samuel Worcester's "A Second Book for Reading and Spelling" and his "A Third Book for Reading and Spelling". We also used Worcester's "A Sequel to The Spelling Book", but the sequel wasn't nearly as good as the original, which was so popular it was always sold out before even one person could buy one.

We learned arithmetic from "The Schoolmaster's Assistant, Being a Compendium of Arithmetic, Both Practical and Theoretical". We couldn't spell that title, either, plus it was often confused with the other schoolmaster's assitant: the wooden yardstick used to whack our fingers with.

We also learned physiology from J.L. Comstock's "Outlines of Physiology", which was intended to be useful, "especially that of females, to the preservation of their forms and their health, by avoiding habits and fashions, which at once deform their persons and ruin their constitutions". This was later condensed and put to music in the song called, "When Irish Girls Grow Up".

<wipes tears from her eyes>

 

[motai]

Books used for what? I see students with a lot of the same textbooks I used, just I had the first or second edition and they're on the 7th or 10th edition now.

That I have noticed. My mom was brought up with an old edition of Perrine's Literature and I read the same thing, albiet a newer edition.