Well, now I'm in college and each textbook I buy is more than $100. So high school textbooks are actually cheaper since they don't come with those extra useless "interactive" CDs and there are no textbook store middleman.

http://www.halfvalue.com/textbook-prices2.htm

Just go to Amazon.com or half.com or Barnes and Nobles and search for a random textbook. They tend to run around $100 each.

But zippers cost only few CENTs each. And the books in high school get used for 10 years. So you can see how much the benefits outweigh the costs.

 

did you look at my link? it states the average price

 

im a sophmore and have a total of 6 test books and 2 smaller work books. i dont really have any problems with my bookbag. you just have to be smart enough to plan pit stops to pick up books and drop some off at your locker. i never carry more than 1 text book at a time because i stop at my locker almost every period. most of my book bags wieght is magozines and paper. i would say my book bag never gets over 20lbs or so at a time. unless i have alot of home work.

 

I did. And I don't know how they arrived at that figure. It certainly not what I'm paying at my bookstore or online.

But whether the books are $50 or $80 really isn't important. The point here is that a school spends 98% of its money on teacher salaries, building maintenance, utilities, and other equipments. As a nation, the US spends over half a trillion per year on education.

But because textbooks are so heavy, many students do not carry their books which interferes with their participation or study. I know my grades were affected because of this. And someone earlier pointed out that he also didn't carry some books. This affect the quality of the education system.

So it seems worth it to pay a little more for option 2, even though it'll make textbooks slightly more expensive. But a school only purchase books once every DECADE.

 

how? anytime I was learning in a classroon, the books I didnt need were under my desk in my bag

 

Do you have any evidence of to support either of these statements?

I maintain that althought the additional cost of materials for a "zippered" book may not be much higher, the cost to the school, and by extension the taxpayer would be a lot higher than that.

 

.........i concur

 

But didn't you say "A MUCH simpler and cheaper solution would be to have a class set of the books, so that the students would leave their books at home, and then use the class set in class."

A school doesn't have to pay for any additional cost? I mentioned it can simply pass the cost to the thousands of student so the students who want lighter books just pay $1 for the whole year. Many students waste enough money already. They buy those $2 folders or binder or notebooks every new school year when the old ones would just work fine. They buy those $5 pencils when a 50 cents one would work just as well.

Are students really willing to save that $1 by carrying an extra 30 lb EVERYDAY for a whole YEAR? Come on man, we are a nation where some of us is willing to pay an extra $500 just to shave 2 lb off our laptop.

If you are a parent, would you rather spend $1 or do you rather have your kids get a slouched back or back pains when he has homeworks for all his classes? Or worse, simply forgo carrying some books and do not do the homework.

 

I always left them at school. I wasn't being payed for cartage, or for overtime - show me where it says so in my contract?

I went to school because:

A) They made me.
B) I was told that without a diploma I would be useless.
C) I was threatened with incarceration if I did not go.

Notwithstanding which I was recieving no tangible renumeration for my efforts that I could identify.... (IE: Pay me, or get off my case!)

In my senior year in High School I was threatened with suspension because BEER (Oh my!) was NEARLY discovered in my locker. Part of a six of Michelob, as I recall... I grabbed it and beat feet, but was duly reported by the janitor.

Without tangible evidence, you'd figure they might let it go...

NOPE, I was busted. By the JANITOR ferkrissakes....

(We thought he was one of ours, the establishment must have re-recruited him when we were not looking)

Later on that day, I told the Principle (Whom I had never met, seen before, or believed in the existance thereof) to take my diploma, fold it so that it was all sharp corners, and stick it - and walked out of the place.

His secretary was a piece of work, but silent.

Three weeks later, after having a good old time and becoming bored to death I re-enlisted in high school...

I realised that a piece of paper was a piece of paper, but without it I would be a "Marked Man".

It could be said that I capitulated. Yet it was on MY terms.


Besides: We "TEEPEE'd" his house with toilet paper robbed from the school...

 

Just carry the heavy books.
I would like all the people from fantasy world to realize one thing:

The human body can handle great amounts of daily abuse, stress, and physical labor. The old adage holds true..."What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger."

However, the body will break down; When the brain has been conditioned to complain, whine and cry all day long, the muscles and tendons go on vacation to get away from the brain. This is known as "mind over matter".
Sailors that have been lost at sea survived because they had control of their minds, they didn't let the body quit. Sick people survive terrible diseases only because their mind was able to help them stay strong enuf to heal. etc. etc.

Another example...If you tell a group of people, they will carry out a specific task every day, and stipulate that they have no other choice, the task gets done; This happens in Military boot camp, football training camp, prison work camps, and other structured organizations where the goal is to weed out and banish the complainers and reward individuals that exhibit great perserverance.
But, the whole group of people can be influenced if you let one lazy shirker start putting the idea that books are heavy, or the walk is too long, or the hours are too long, or the task is too difficult. It just takes one person to spoil the entire group. Don't be that person, don't follow that person, don't even listen to that person.

 

If they know you have a computer - why aren't the books on CD?

OR....

They can be on a mainframe at the school, and students can dial up or DSL to view them from home.

Schools should have servers and resources online in this day and age.

 

I remeber only being permitted to the locker once per day. All books for morning were carried until lunch. All books for afternoon were carried the remainder of the day. I didn't see anyone using a backpack until I went to college.
We just used a book bag. Which many of us had made ourselves in the required home-ec. class.
I am a high school teacher. Typically, the students who carry their books with them have much higher grades than those who refuse because they are "too heavy".
I don't think it has as much to do with the fact that they have their books and are prepared as it does their mindset of doing everything they need to do to succeed, even if it requires effort.

 

While I think what you are doing is great, I think you are going about it the wrong way. There is a HUGE bias towards having separate books. The school district will see that and call you on it. The options for your poll are heavily biased. You are better off presenting the facts in a way that is not slanted either way and have poll options that are neutral if you expect to get good results from the poll.

 

unclehan - I also have a couple of questions here.

You go back and forth with how often schools replace text books. Is it 5 years, or 10? My high school replaced some more often than that.

You state that the additional cost for all those zippers would be ~ $1.50. I would like to see you buy the materials for all your proposed zippers for that. You need to remember that there is labor involved in setting up the machines, and the fact that to put zippers on a book would require a lot of new machinery and a lot more time.

I would really like to see more documentation or proof of your facts. You really don't have a concrete argument without having information to back you up.

 

I was talking in average terms, not "some". And textbooks are manufactured to last at least 8 years, that's according to a manufacturing president I emailed. That's why there is an organization called NASTA and BMI that have standards on manufacturing.

I said the additional cost of the zippers to be $1.5, and it's an educated guess. Of course it'll require some new equipments, and of course it'll take a couple of seconds more time in an automated process. But guess what, no pain no gain. Considering that millions of textbooks get manufactured a year, the investment is worth it.

Why did I guess $1.5? Because the manufacturing cost of a cheap three ringed binder is only 60 cents, and THAT has metal parts. Because tiny zippers only cost a few pennies according to YKK. Because when you make millions of something every year, the cost is really low. $1.5 is already including some extra profit the manufacturer would want to make, such as 25 cents.