I bought these three books because they were on sale and since we're a country school, I think it's important we have a good agriculture section. The kids love ag books.
They claim to be informational books, but the slant in them is incredible. Everything about farming is very negative, with no balanced opinions or solutions presented, other than this one small inset saying that one study found that organic farming could feed the word.
It gets worse! Can you read the last line of this snippet about GM crops and seeds? A complex issue involving emerging technology, intellectual property, copyright, etc.
"This is so that the companies can sell more seeds and become richer."
Gah!
Our farm families will definitely take issue with this. If it were a balanced portrayal I wouldn't mind so much but this is pure propaganda. I didn't read the books until they were already stamped so I think I'm stuck with them. I'm glad they were on sale. I'm considering putting a note in the front of the book describing the bias and asking students to look for it, at the very least then I would have stated that I know it's slanted and that they should not read it as truth.
I can't read every book before I buy it! How do I avoid this problem in the future?
Or do you think I'm overreacting?
3 comments:
I think you should pull the books and maybe always just preview farming/ag ones? Also, maybe sending an email to the vendor saying that propaganda needs to be noted as such. This is super disappointing. :-(
That's too bad! Kinda makes me wonder what is in the school textbooks about farming and ag. The covers are sure misleading.
Darn...I am wondering what their alternative to farming is? Because, if you don't farm, then, well...what are we all supposed to eat? No entiendo.
Did you find these on an educational site? If anything, I'd email the vendor that they're propaganda, post reviews, etc., so that other teachers/librarians don't fall for the same trick.
Lame.
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