My back hurts. A lot. All the time. While I have put the lumbar portion of my spinal cord through much abuse in life, right at this point in time I am blaming this pain on physics and psychology.
(I think…) that the matter and energy of my vertebrae, the muscles in my dorsal plane, and the interactions of these, along with gravity, cause pain, (…therefore, I am.) in pain. This makes sense to me, but it is really the physics and psychology books for said classes, which add so much weight to my backpack, that are causing the problem.
If you attend classes, surely you have at least one of these monster books, which are oversized in every direction. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE books. However, books should be in a format that is convenient to the reader. Why do some textbooks have to be so large that you cannot hold it open (at least for long) without the support of a table or lap? Besides the unwieldiness of them, they are just plain heavy.
There is a plethora of information in these books that professors are hoping we will retain past test dates. I have to publicly admit that while my passions are more in the creative line, I have found I really enjoy science as well. I want the contents of my textbooks, I just don’t want the bulk.
My brain still is not fond of higher math; however, my body is thrilled this semester. No math book. Everything is online. This works great for math, and I’m sure it works fantastic for other courses as well, but if I wanted to take all my classes online I would have picked an online school.
Can’t we find the proverbial happy medium? My writing class does. There are two, not large, easily handled books and the rest of the reading and information is posted on Blackboard or can be found on the web. Blackboard could be my new best friend if teachers would use it more. Like I said before, some do. Some teachers have both: posts on Blackboard and large heavy books.
I want the best of both worlds, though. I want a basic textbook for each class: overview of subject, chapter outlines (this should be fairly detailed, it shouldn’t be just a contents page), summary and appendixes (depending on subject, this could include major charts, formulas, bibliography, works cited, notes and a glossary). That’s it.
Put everything else on disk or on a web site. Keep the writers, manufacturers and booksellers happy by making it mandatory for the class that you buy one of the options. Again, I don’t want to lose any information from the book, I just want it in lighter form.
I can hear the grumbles from some people about not having a computer or access to the Internet. I understand. I do not have Internet at home. I have to use either a library or NEIU computer. There are computers all over campus that students can use for homework.
Short of purchasing two sets of books (yeah, I can barely afford one set, let alone two) or not doing homework because of having to leave textbooks at home or school, buying a car or moving across from the school, this is the only way backpacks are going to get lighter, especially as people find a need to carry more things with them (food, change of clothes) on their journey through the day. That however, is another story.