Pearson math books frustrate students

Oh my! New Pearson curriculum has sharp looking books. The school district changed to Pearson this school year. Photo taken by Caley Galarneau

Caley Galarneau

This school year the math curriculum changed from Prentice Hall to Pearson.  It is nice to have updated books but the challenges arising from the new program have many wishing for a different curriculum.  Wrong answers, mismatched page numbers and online difficulties make students frustrated.

There have been multiple times in class where I am trying to do my work, and the teacher tells the class not to do a problem because it is not even possible to solve.  Other times the teacher tells the class not to check answers from the book because they are wrong.  The company cannot expect students to learn accurately if their answers are wrong.  Simply fixing those answers and problems would help students so much.

Another annoying thing is the fact that the online and physical book pages do not match up.  There are so many students who would rather use the online book instead of the physical book.  Teachers typically give the physical book pages, so the students who want to use the online book have to go and find a whole different page just to do their homework.  In the time it takes to find the page, the student could have done their homework and be started on something else.

Pearson also shuts down alot.  In the beginning of the year, I would try to get on the online book to do my extra credit, and it would not let me on.  If the company is going to sell their books to a school district and allow them to use their curriculum, then they should at least have their website working.  It took at least a week for it to start working again, that is a week of lost time.  I did not want to get new books just so I cannot do my work.

If Pearson could step its game up and match the pages, it would be great.  It would save students so much time and maybe even teachers.  Correct answers are a must.  Online access must be consistent.  When a company produces a product, especially books, editors should have made the books perfect.