Douchebags, Commies, and Textbooks

First, I know that I promised that there would be a new Douchebag of the Week, and it is coming...next week while I am on Spring Break. I'm building a collection right now and the monkeys are typing away furiously at their machines.

Second, I went to a meeting today to discuss which textbook we are adopting in LAUSD next year for social studies. Well, we don't get a huge choice since there was a committee of teachers that met over the summer and looked through the 7-8 submissions for each core class (World History, U.S. History, Government, Economics) and they cut the choices down to about three and the Board narrowed even further in some cases. And let me tell you, textbooks are BIG MONEY my friends, and especially when the company has a chance to sell books to the 2nd largest district in the country. Its sort of like the drug companies buying lunch for doctors almost every day except they only have to kiss our asses once every 6-7 years, which is how often we adopt new books.

(NOTE: there are some classified/confidential issues involved here, so I am not going to mention specific companies or tell you who we are likely to choose)

So our meeting was held at Pickwick Gardens in Burbank, which is a banquet hall/bowling alley/ice skating facility. No, we weren't discussing the books between frames and pitchers of MGD, but we were fed in large amounts. When I got there a "continental breakfast" was waiting. Not the Days Inn continental breakfast with danish, shitty muffins, and a carton of Donald Duck Orange Juice. Well, OK, there were Danish and shitty muffins, but also cereal, granola, juice, coffee, tea, bagels, fruit, and (to my excitement) fresh hard-boiled eggs. These were some good-ass eggs too. No green stuff on the yoke. So I had two eggs, a slice of bagel with cream cheese, some tasty coffee and some Tropicana OJ, which was in individual bottles.

Then we went to presentations for our first two companies. They gave us free totebags, which were actually of good quality, and a copy of the teacher and student editions of their books. As we went through the books they told us how these books are so good we don't even need to show up. Now, textbooks have come a long way since I was in high school. These days, the supplemental material they give us fill a 2-foot long box. However, that box is really obsolete since everything in the box, including both the student and teacher books, are on a CD. Often, they give us enough CDs that we can let students take them home and load them onto their home computers. PLUS, the two companies that I saw were offering us a free laptop or LCD projector for every ____ amount of books we buy. See what I mean? There's some serious scrilla flying around here.

After these two 30 minute presentations they gave us more food. It was mostly the same breakfast food, but they added more fruit and various granola bars. I had a banana and tried to kill my headache with 2 more cups of coffee and some water. Plus, I snagged a Nutri-Grain bar for later, although I never ate it.

Then I went back to the same companies and heard about their books for other subjects and got more free crap. Nothing too exciting, except now I have 4 totebags full of books and stuff. Really, though, the technology is mind-numbing at some point. Right now my technology is a laptop, LCD projector, and PowerPoint. These new books have video clips, interactive maps, extra help on their websites, pre-made PowerPoints, test-makers, lesson planners, etc. One publisher had this game-type deal where you got 40 remote controls and a sensor. The remotes have buttons A-H and you can put questions up on the screen. They point the remote at the sensor and click their answer. When the teacher hits some button on the computer, the screen shows how many people picked each answer. Then I can print a report that shows me which student picked which answers and which questions most students got wrong. There is also an option where one of the buttons can be a buzzer. Crazy. I'm not saying that we picked this company or that this was a good or bad tool, I'm just telling you about some of the crazy crap available (that's my attempt at a disclaimer).

Next was lunch. Now, please realize that its only 11:30 and I was just eating breakfast about 3 hours ago. Two salads, penne pasta with some kind of cream sauce, rice pilaf, chicken, and beef (tri-tip?). I had Caesar salad, a little rice, a little pasta, chicken, and one piece of beef. Here's the thing about the chicken: it was actually fish. I swear to God, it looked like chicken until I cut it. Now, I'll eat beef or chicken that has been kept hot in a chafing dish over Sterno, but I won't even eat fresh fish. It was all good, except the chicken/fish. I went to get some more iced tea and saw the desserts. Of course they had the standard cookies and brownies, but they also had bread pudding. I had a bit and it was good, but my stomach was full from too much water and coffee.

Now we discussed the books in grade-level groups. This is the part where I won't write much, but let's just say that there are some teachers that really don't get it. One guy wanted to pick a textbook simply because his school would get more free crap (laptops and projectors). In any case, it comes down to us picking one book as a school from the short list and hoping that we get them before the school year starts. I, however, already have my copy so I'm set. Shit, I have two copies of some of them.

Finally, we met as a large group. More food. This time there were cups put out and there were various bowls with Whoppers, Gummi Bears, peanuts, and pretzels. This is MAYBE 90 minutes after lunch. I love whoppers with a passion, but I just could not stomach the idea of more food (is that a pun?). However, one of my colleagues thought that I was joking about Whoppers being good so I ate one just to show him that they weren't disgusting.

So that was my day. I avoided our earthquake/evacuation drill and got a bunch of free food and books. Its a really interesting process, although a bit convoluted when it involves a district the size of LAUSD.

Third, I went to see Mikhail Gorbachev speak last night at the Civic here in Pasadena. I have a lot to say about that, but I am too tired to deal with it now. I promise to make an attempt to write about it tomorrow.