Bad Textbook

I was listening to our ethics instructor discussing…hmmm…ethics and I was a little disappointed when the situations given by the instructor are not good situations that demands ethical exploration. (The instructor is a wonderful human being, kind and humble.) I can’t blame the instructor because, let’s face it, very few Filipinos are interested in the philosophy of morals even at the introductory level.

Anyways, I am not writing about the instructor but about the textbook that he is using. I looked at the title and the author and scan a few pages, and the book is one of those cut and pasted books that works more like a review outline—good for memorization but not for learning. The instructor was lamenting the fact that no sample situations were given in the book; in fact, nothing is discussed in the (I’m trying to restrain myself) that good for nothing waste of paper, called textbook.

Let me quote Dorothy Parker:

“This is not a book to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.”

May I add, burn the darn book…burn it!

The quality of our text books is a manifestation of the general condition of our educational system.

(There are good textbooks but why don't we use them. Now, why is that?)