Correct. But that's not something that an open content textbook policy can change. That's a community issue, having to do with 'community moral standards'.
But sometimes, court cases are filed, making it a national issue by the time it gets to the supreme court. And you can bet FOX will have a field day over the lawsuit if our book gives any reference to religions other than christianity without giving equal (but out of place) refrences to christianity.
Sometime true, sometimes not. Again, this is something that open source has no control over.
It's something every textbook, open or closed, must do to be used.
It's not a conspiracy-theory rant; it's a well-considered opinion. There is some truth to what you say. I don't think you're paranoid (unless you were writing this with your door quadruple-bolted and a loaded scrapnel grenade on your lap after your seventh Red Bull in the last 30 minutes) ;)
Here are some reasons why we *should* be aiming at schools.
- Open source textbooks can - as suggested, and is
advised - be modular, so that districts can choose those parts of a book that they want (that are in addition to the approved core. So, if you have a district that believes that the idea evoluton is the devil's work, they can add a module about how we didn't evolve from apes. They'll do it anyway. In fact, someone may very well contribute such a module to an open source text project. Wouldn't it be better to see the part of the book that is approved for general use in place (cheaper, better content, more flexible, etc.), than not? There's no way that open source content can legislate community morality
Good idea. Kinda like letting them use the Wiki at their end. But that would probably be to cunbersome for them. They want a ready-made textbook. Not to mention that this modularity, although it is in theory good, would be a nightmare to print.
I came up with a new idea for what we can use our textbooks as without risk of censorship: idiot's-guide-type books! We could make a series called something like "World History: By Anyone, For Anyone" LDan
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