One of the four stated in class yesterday that she hated the Saxon texts we were using. Frankly, I do, too. Most texts will cover a certain number of chapters in a school year... start with chapter one, take a test, go on to chapter two, take a test, and so on. Each chapter in math usually presupposes that the material from prior chapters has been learned and builds from there.

Saxon takes things differently. Although the same topics are covered, they're done so with a little of everything at once rather than a traditional chapter-to-chapter approach. What might be the first lessons taught in separate chapters in other texts are all together at the beginning of Saxon. Further lessons do build on prior material, but it sort of works by rows instead of columns. The net result is supposed to be the same... all the material is covered. Saxon says the constant review insures better learning. But in the case when a student transfers to another school mid-year (as in crisis number one), all the other kids in class know everything covered in the first half of their text, whereas the Saxon student knows the first half of every chapter. What this means come placement time is that the student "only" knows half of what they're supposed to know in class at that point and gets labeled as being behind.

I've said it before when teaching out of Saxon, and I'll say it again: Saxon is an idiot.

So, yesterday when Diana chimed in that she hated Saxon and would rather work out of another text, I said, "Sure!" Each of the others said the same. We all let Jody and Beth know we were in the process of a mutiny. Jody said she'd get whatever materiel I'd like and to make my order as soon as possible.

On my walk home yesterday I realized that I'm never going to be in this situation again... in a school with high academic standards... with administrators that have full faith in and give full support to my methods. I decided I knew the exact author for the text for my math class. I've known him for a long time.

This is something I've wanted to do for twenty years... to write a book; and now, I'm doing it. I was so excited at the thought that I wrote the entire first chapter of my algebra text last night.

This morning I was to tell Jody what books to order. I informed her that I was writing my own text and submitted my first chapter. She was almost as excited as I was, asking if I'd come up with a title for my book. I said no, but my working title is Algebra in 90 Days.