Editing Textbooks?

[frugalmama]

Does anyone else do this to make their kiddos textbooks better suit family beliefs?

 

 

I am using R&S Our Father's World because I like the gentle setup and easy lessons for DD, but I want to edit out some of the religious content. I'm thinking of just going over it with white-out in places - has anyone gone that route? Or is there a better way?

[Ellie]

I wouldn't go so far as to white-out anything, but certainly in our conversations I would discuss things that I disagreed with. If I felt so strongly about something that I felt the need to physically delete/cover up stuff, I'd be more likely to just get something else that I was more comfortable with.

[J-rap]

I don't like to mark-up texts because I like to try and sell them. That being said, I'd sometimes have my children skip pages or even chapters, or at least we would discuss it afterward. If I found this happening too much, then we'd find a different curriculum.

[regentrude]

If the bias was slight, I'd discuss it. If it was so prevalent that I would feel the need to use white-out, I would choose a different curriculum that fit our values better.

I personally am very opposed to censorship and would not want to model to my children that blacking/whiting out information I do not agree with is an acceptable way to deal with different opinions.

ETA: Also, nothing draws more attention to content than it being cut. Having grown up in a system with government censorship, I know that the censored passages were often all one was interested in in a book. So, drawing attention to these passages WILL involve you in discussions.... you can have that easier by just letting it be there and skipping.

[Desert Rat]

I never thought I would censor a book. This year, however, I got Exploring the World of Physics for ds11. It was highly recommended; I read lots of reviews. It looked like a great book with a great layout and questions for discussion at the end of each chapter. I was smitten! I was in love! And! It was a series!

I read the first paragraph and it said something about God making the world. I went, "Hmmm..." I had to preread the chapters to discuss with ds anyway. They discussed Newton's religious background. Not a problem. He was, indeed religious. Move along, but getting a bit nervous. Then we hit chapter 3 about Gravity. I read a sentence, "He knew that God had given the sun, moon, stars, and planets as natural clocks and calendars. The Bible, in Genesis......" I got out my black pen and started marking out passages of personal belief. When ds read through it, after I had explained why I had marked out passages, he came back and showed me another passage and thought it should be marked out as well. I told him that I had left that part alone because it explained how religion influenced Kepler's life and studies. It is pertinent to his thought process. So, I'm not just going crazy with the pen slashing out anything God related.

It's one thing to discuss a person's religious background as it affected his scientific process. And, indeed, Newton and Kepler were both strongly influenced. It's just not necessary to quote the Bible and use verbs like "knew" instead of "believed" in a science text book. (This is just one small example in the book.) There is a difference between discussing religion as biographical background and preaching. This book definitely has an agenda.

There have been been 2 chapters I've marked up. I'm disappointed. I love the book! I love how it reads and how the subjects are presented. It isn't published by a religious publisher. There is nowhere it says that it's a religious book. We are atheists. It's not offensive to us to read religious viewpoints in history or literature because it's good to have a broad world view.

But it is my personal and very humble opinion that science and religion do not belong together. I'm still using the book and still like it, for the most part. I just wish there was less personal agenda in it. It's not necessary or pertinent to the topic. I know there are people who would disagree with me. I'm not looking for debate. This is just my personal viewpoint of how science should be taught in MY family.

I am against censorship of any kind. I won't pass this book on to anyone else because I have censored it for my family. I've always been the kind of person who said, if you don't like what's on the radio, that's what the dial is for. If you don't like what's in a book, close it. You don't have to read it. I guess it was just my laziness and exhaustion at trying to find a good homeschool science curriculum that made me decide to edit rather than just close the book.

[fairfarmhand]

If the bias was slight, I'd discuss it. If it was so prevalent that I would feel the need to use white-out, I would choose a different curriculum that fit our values better.

I personally am very opposed to censorship and would not want to model to my children that blacking/whiting out information I do not agree with is an acceptable way to deal with different opinions.

ETA: Also, nothing draws more attention to content than it being cut. Having grown up in a system with government censorship, I know that the censored passages were often all one was interested in in a book. So, drawing attention to these passages WILL involve you in discussions.... you can have that easier by just letting it be there and skipping.

:iagree:

 

I have books that present things with which we do not agree. We simply discuss the differences and WHY we believe differently.

 

I use R and S too and we have talked alot about a few differences....head covering comes to mind as one thing that came up in our New Testament study.

[elegantlion]

I never thought I would censor a book. This year, however, I got Exploring the World of Physics for ds11. It was highly recommended; I read lots of reviews. It looked like a great book with a great layout and questions for discussion at the end of each chapter. I was smitten! I was in love! And! It was a series!

 

 

Is this the book by John Hudson Tiner? Anything by him is going to have a religious bent.

 

If so they are published by Master Books, which is indeed a christian company.http://www.newleafpublishinggroup.com/mb.php

 

to the OP: I don't white out books or cover nudes either. We either discuss or find another curriculum. I've sold a few books because I couldn't get past the bias.

[frugalmama]

I don't have the luxury of finding something else to use - I have already spent my homeschool budget for the year and there is no extra anywhere else. So I have to make this book work for us.

 

Mostly it is a sentence here and there, with the exception of the chapter on Europe. That chapter we will skip for sure.

[Desert Rat]

It is, elegantlion. I was completely unaware that it was a Christian publisher. Nowhere that I read said anything about the religious nature of these books. I even asked on the EL board here and was told it was a great book for secular science.

It's all good. I know now and will avoid.

[elegantlion]

It is, elegantlion. I was completely unaware that it was a Christian publisher. Nowhere that I read said anything about the religious nature of these books. I even asked on the EL board here and was told it was a great book for secular science.

It's all good. I know now and will avoid.

 

I do remember some people saying they used them in a secular fashion. I do wish there was a better way of knowing how secular/christian a book is without examining every minute detail before purchase.

 

We are christian and it's sometimes hard for me to figure out what is acceptable in the materials I own for those that prefer totally secular resources. I also have a comfort level of christianese in my science, so we've gone to totally secular materials.