Workbook publishers, you have made my life difficult as a homeschooling parent.
We purchase perforated workbooks so we can remove pages and give them one or two at a time to our daughters. Yet, time and time again, the back of one page is required to complete the next page.
Even the workbooks I like a lot do this. Your designers surely realize that two-page spreads are a bad idea, especially two-page spreads that appear back-to-back.
Publishers might argue, “We’re making reproducible for teachers. You’re not supposed to give the originals to students.”
Yet, you sell a teacher’s edition of the workbook and a student edition. You even sell the student editions in sets of five or ten. That implies students will use those pages and turn in the work for grading.
Designers could insert blank pages or other materials on the back of “Day 5” sheets. I don’t mind that Monday and Tuesday might be on the same sheet, but Friday should not be on the sheet as next Monday’s work.
There are 32 to 36 weeks in a school year. There’s no need for 32 blank pages, though. Design to minimize the need for those blanks. But, darn it, make it so I can tear out the pages without messing up the previous or next worksheet set.
We need homeschool-friendly workbooks.
Susan, my wife, and I have taken to scanning the pages in some workbooks. The Shell Education books I like include digital copies, which at least allows us to print only the pages we need. Including a CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, or a link to a digital download gives the teacher (or homeschooling parent) the ability to print units on demand.
Another “thumbs up” to the Shell Education 180 Days series for their digital links and CD-ROMs. Thank you!
Why don’t we let the girls work directly in the workbooks? That’s a reasonable question. There are several reasons the girls need one sheet at a time.
First, if we give them a book, or even more than a few pages, they become overwhelmed and just stare at the thick stack of work. We have discovered eight sheets marks the anxiety tipping point. Add a ninth sheet and the girls freeze, unable to work because they’re consumed with panic that there’s too much work ahead.
The next reason we don’t give the girls the complete books: answer keys. They cannot resist “checking” their work before Susan or I grade the pages. We need to know which content needs to be reviewed. We need accurate assessments. The girls cannot resist looking at answer keys. When a workbook lacks perforated pages, we carefully cut out the answer keys.
Yes, we’d love to trust the girls. We want to trust them. For now, they are impulsive eight- and nine-year-old kids.
Another reason we give sheets is convenience. The girls move about the house during the day. We place the day’s worksheets in a folder for each girl. They take those folders from Susan’s office to the kitchen, to their bedrooms, to the guest room. It’s a lot easier to let the move eight sheets of paper than eight workbooks.
Solutions are Simple
Publishers should adopt the Shell Education model: include digital resources. I understand you don’t want to give away the PDFs of your workbooks. Educational publishing cannot be that lucrative as it is, much less without the rampant piracy among teachers and parents. Shell uses a “find the Nth word on page X” system.
Interestingly, this is what several magazines I read do. The magazines no longer include physical discs. When you visit the publisher’s website, you enter the correct word or phrase and the files are downloaded. You also register the content to an email address.
A physical book problem, made less annoying via technology.