Fifth grader asks, where are my textbooks?

At a recent Pennsylvania school meeting involving parents, teachers, students and administrators, a 5th grader stood up and asked why their school didn't have enough textbooks. You and I would probably guess it was a funding problem, but the school district was actually spending more than they would for textbooks, a lot more.

Their science and health programs were using handouts called modules. When asked why, the administer stated that the text books were often outdated by the time they reached the schools.

Modules are more current, and offer the teacher more flexibility to more effectively instruct. Hence they are deemed worth the increased cost that may approach twice the cost of the textbooks. To be fair, additional ancillary materials are often included, but it would seem that the whole operation of gathering, writing, editing, printing, and assembling the program must be shortened to ensure a timely learning process.

What is our lesson to be learned? Obviously to shorten the process. We must, as an industry of publishers and printers, take a look at our time to market. We must know our ultimate "customers": the teachers and school districts, and provide them what they want when they need it.

Our alternative will be to grumble and complain, and wonder why we're not getting the business we forecasted. Or, we may blame electronic textbooks or digital printing, but we will miss the real point: we aren't listening.