Georgia school solves eight-year-olds’ slavery problem
TO illustrate match problems at Beaver Ridge Elementary in Norcross, Ga., the teaching staff are counting slavery and beatings.
Question: “Each tree had 56 oranges. If eight slaves pick them equally, then how much would each slave pick?”
Christopher Braxton ws surprised when he read his 8-year-old son’s maths homework:
“It kind of blew me away. Do you see what I see? Do you really see what I see? He’s not answering this question.”
This is what happens when you read your child’s homework. Don’t. It only leads to pain and rows. (I one spent a week trying to fathom out a junior school maths solution called ‘Don’t Miss The Bus’.)
Another problem went:
Q: “If Frederick got two beatings per day, how many beatings did he get in one week?”
Be careful with this one, mums and dads. Do you beat your child on a Sunday? If you answer “14”, expect a visits from the social services. Also, not that Frederick is belligerent Alsatian dog.
Says Braxton:
“I was furious at that point in time. Something like that shouldn’t be imbedded into a kid of the third, fourth, fifth, any grade.”
Says dad Terrance Barnett:
“I’m having to explain to my 8-year-old why slavery or slaves or beatings are in a maths problem. That hurts.”
The school responds:
“In this one, the teachers were trying to do a cross-curricular activity,” district spokeswoman Sloan Roach said. Roach explained the teachers were trying to incorporate social studies lessons into the math problems, which is something the school district encourages. But the problem with the questions is there is no historical context.
Which begs the question: what are they teaching them in history? American history only foes back so far: land; smallpox; English; slaves; cowboys; gold; moon; Dallas; GaGa…
The upshot is that the school vice principal had collected the assignment to shred them so that they didn’t resurface.
It being what George Washington would have wanted…
Not that we are education experts, or anything, but… this is probably not a situation where “historical context” would have improved matters.
[WSB-TV]
Posted: 10th, January 2012 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
