Math homework asks slavery questions

I just wanted to share this story and get your thoughts. Elementary schoolers in Norcross, Ga. got math word problems such as "If Fred got 2 beatings per day for a week, how many beatings did he get" and "Each tree had 56 oranges. If eight slaves pick them equally, then how much would each slave pick?" WTF? Why would they do this?. That question's like saying "If Klaus threw 50 Jews in the ovens per week, how many did he kill in a month"? Luckily they are investigating the teachers who did this.

...huh.

I'm reminded of the book Matilda. If you're going to do something bad, do something so outrageous that nobody will believe it when you try to tell someone.

The purpose was to cross curriculums, to make education interdisciplinary. It's been admitted that it was a poor choice.

Anime geemu wo shinasai!

What the fuck?

This is like the kind of train wreck I'd expect to see South Park or the Onion come up with.

Yeah, see, this would have been a good idea if the topic they were crossreferencing wasn't a brutal violation of human rights. I can see it, like...

'George the Spider Monkey eats 5 apples a day! How many apples does he eat in a week?' or something when they're learning about animals. But...

"You fail to grasp the basic principles of mad science. Common sense would be cheating." - Narbonic

My bro's suggested correct answer: "TOO FEW! [crack of whip]"

"Atheism is the religion whose followers are easiest to troll"

I remember my physics teacher asking questions involving Star Trek redshirts beaming down onto an alien highway and your baby sister's high-viscosity drool accelerating toward your $2000 motherboard, so I'm in no way averse to weird shit in story problems.

But...I mean, seriously. What idiot thought this one had any hair of a possibility of ending well?

Huh, and here I was thinking that this was going to be on the 3/5 law when learning fractions.

"Wilson the slave owner owns 150 slaves. He gets 3 votes for every 5 slaves. How many votes does he get?"

Not enough to stop Lincoln from becoming President.

"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."

14. 7 each. If we're counting "one month" = "four weeks", or if that month is February*

and not a leap year

, then it's 200. Assuming that the month has 30 days, then it's 214.29 (which I guess the .29 counts as a 10 week pregnant mom?) or 221.43 for a 31 day month. disclaimer

I hope I don't have to expand the Pot Hole to the entire post, do I?

I can think of a few reasons - 1) to highlight the pain and misery of slavery (or the Holocaust) with the math problems, 2) to get more students to engage compared to more boring/normal word problems.

There are a great, great number of things in history that today would be counted as brutal violations of human rights. Does that mean they shouldn't be part of a school curriculum?

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw

Genghis Khan's army of two hundred thousand slaughtered fifty thousand people in one and half hour. How long would his army of one hundred thousand take to slaughter one hundred thousand?

"Atheism is the religion whose followers are easiest to troll"

Six hours, give or take. Then again, a hundred thousand people against a similarly sized horde might put up more of a fight, so it might take much longer.

You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.

At 8:00 AM in late 1995, a fleeing group of Tutsis fled a city in central Rwanda. They traveled on foot at 4 mph. A Hutu death squad left the same city to hunt them down at 11:00 AM. Their jeeps were able to travel at 10 mph in the terrain of their pursuit. At what time do the hunters catch up and oh god why the fuck am I writing this?

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

Blue Ninja: Of course not. Just that it ends up being a little absurd in cases like this, because it ends up looking like the kids got no context for the situations in the math problems, even though they obviously did in their other classes and it wasn't intended as a slavery is great thing.

"You fail to grasp the basic principles of mad science. Common sense would be cheating." - Narbonic

http://xkcd.com/135/

I will always cherish the chance of a new beggining.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought of that strip .

"I can think of a few reasons - 1) to highlight the pain and misery of slavery (or the Holocaust) with the math problems, 2) to get more students to engage compared to more boring/normal word problems. "

Surely there's a better way to do both of those things.

edited 9th Jan '12 9:00:10 PM by stripesthezebra

Maybe they were just getting jealous of the physics classes — physics problems tend to be quite violent. Ballistics and all.

This is just ridiculous.

"Shit, our candidate is a psychopath. Better replace him with Newt Gingrich."

... It's just a math question, and these are elementary school kids who have no background information or perhaps even the ability to really comprehend those questions. There are much better ways to include history within math problems, and to teach children those subjects (separate from each other, like regularly).

Oh, indeed, and I did not mean to imply otherwise. Merely that I can see their possible reasoning for these word problems that does not automatically stem from racism.

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw

^^^^My physics problems were never violent. Just weird. "A penguin is sitting in a cardboard box on frictionless ice." "The speed limit is 50 MPH. If you are traveling 60 MPH at this distance behind an unmarked police car while distracted by your cell phone..."

edited 9th Jan '12 10:49:53 PM by INUH

Infinite Tree: an experimental story

Nothing about the ballistics of children after they get hit by speeding cars? No fun!

What the hell? How the hell? Why would anybody ever think this to be a good idea? I mean - does everybody in that town lack common sense?

Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken. Unrelated ME1 Fanfic

Have you SEEN the Republican line-up for the election? Common sense is a luxury at all levels of society, it seems.

It's an option. Like heated seats on cars.

I'm baaaaaaack