The media pundit's pundit. Written by NYC insider Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine covers news, media, journalism, and politics.
Antisocial media
: Engadget reports that iPods are banned in a school as antisocial. My son just told me that in his school all the kids bring iPods to lunch but — get this — they’re not allowed to bring books to lunch. Now, to be reasonable, I’m assuming that’s because books are big and clunky and iPods aren’t. Time to digitize the textbooks (and lighten those backpacks!). [via InstaPod]
That would be too easy and too cost effective. The publishers would not be too happy with that, especially since they seem to enjoy putting out new editions each year because, as well all know, the Pythagorean Theorem is constantly being reinvented. They’d also probably use the excuse that students would steal the e-books and they’d lose money on that, as well, even though the Adobe DRM, as evil as it is, is effective in curtailing most of this kind of theft.
But it would be so effective. When I was in High School (NYC, natch), my Spanish class didn’t have enough text books for the class and so we went a semester without one. Imagine if my text book was available on my PDA. Wow.
Advice for the thwarted student bookworm – put audiobooks on your iPod. Works like a charm.
I’m guessing the reason that students can’t bring the books to lunch is the concern that they’ll get dirty/wet from food and beverages. Either that, or maybe someone has used a book as a weapon in the past at that particular school.
I suspect the first one, though.
This is a totally self-interested comment, being that I work for audible.com [the leading seller of digital, downloadable audiobooks] – but schools should be encouraging kids to put books of any kind on their iPods, mp3 players, whatever. If they can’t bring physical books with them – at least promote the idea of listening to books as an alternative to music.
Wow. If that kind of policy had been in place at my elementary school, I would have begun homeschooling a lot sooner than the 7th grade.
I can probably count on one hand the number of lunches I had where I didn’t have a book with me. And at least half a dozen other kids were the same way. Sheesh.
Time to pull your kid out of that “school”, Jeff, and look for one where they actually teach knowledge as opposed to getting them friendly with shiny gadgets. I can tell you that if that had been told to me as a child I would have refused to go to school. I spent every waking minute that I could with my nose in a book, and as a result I avoided learning all sorts of “life enhancing skills” like how to roll a roach, dry hump, and get a fake ID. I was so deprived.
I’m confused. Jeff, you said it was no *books* at lunch. Did you mean textbooks? What if the kid wants to read a paperback?
Is this general-purposes book ban a common policy in schools these days? That is possibly the most insane public school policy I have ever heard of, and that’s a high bar.
My guess is a rule like this is the result of the School Librarian complaining about mustard on library books. A school, being a bureaucracy, doesn’t want to distinguish between library or other school books and student owned books, so they just ban all books. This approach is easier to enforce.