<p>– just when you thought you’ve heard and read everything:</p>
<p>[Slavery</a> math assignment causes parents outrage](<a href=“http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/317534]Slavery”>http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/317534)</p>
<p>“children brought home from school math homework assignment that had word problems referring to slavery and beating of slaves.”</p>
<p>It only goes to show that despite having a black president, boy do we as a society still have a LONG way to go…</p>
<p>The idea of incorporating social studies topics into math assignments is appealing, but not in this instance. It comes across as taking slavery lightly, which is inappropriate. Slavery is such a painful topic that I can’t think of any math problem related to it that would be appropriate.</p>
<p>But I wouldn’t like to see the whole concept of math problems that relate to social studies topics abandoned. There are many less sensitive topics where it might work well.</p>
<p>When I first read about this (on another forum) I thought it was some kind of sick parody. I couldn’t believe it was real! The test also supposedly included this question:</p>
<p>Another question said: “If Frederick got two beatings per day, how many beatings did he get in one week?”</p>
<p>marian, I agree, there are many more appropriate ways to incorporate social studies into math. Including money problems, weight of crops, time problems related to how early early americans had to get up AND go to sleep…all sorts of things. I can only hope that this teacher made a really bad attempt to educate students on how difficult the life of a slave was. Even that topic could have been done in a more compassionate way in math.</p>
<p>Can’t imagine what the math teachers Holocust questions will look like. scary.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, there are still many who find slavery or racism to not only be legitimate…but a joke to be made at the expense of those who were/are the victims.</p>
<p>Aside from the poor judgment that would lead someone to put this question on a test, it’s a bad question for a test, period. I have a friend who is one of the team that determines questions for the SAT. He says they try to devise questions which, among other criteria, don’t distract from the information they’re trying to elicit. He says any math problem which has a kid suddenly thinking of something else, like the shocking slavery question would, does not belong on a test because the kid is no longer thinking of math, but of slavery. The question no longer functions to gauge math abilities.</p>
<p>hayden, this was a homework assignment. One of the pushes in curriculum is to incorporate across disciplines to reinforce topics. The goal is not only the reinforcement, but also to develop critical thinking and help students create connections with topics. </p>
<p>But yes, the questions were still in poor taste.</p>
<p>vlines, yes, I missed that part. </p>
<p>But now I’m totally puzzled. What critical thinking would a math question about beating slaves develop? And what connections? Not only do I think the question was bad judgment, but I can’t figure out what they were trying to achieve.</p>
<p>If they wanted to inject cross-curricular material, they could have crafted questions giving some insight into the economics of exploitation.</p>
<p>This was just monumentally dumb. I don’t think it represents making light of slavery in the slightest.</p>
<p>“poor taste” – vlines, you’re being much kinder than I would be. </p>
<p>I’d call it “fire-able” offense, and yes, I’d fire anyone who wrote/approved these questions. At the very least, they reflect a shocking and dangerous level of clueless-ness.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I wonder whether the math teachers at this school were required to write homework questions that related to the social studies curriculum, regardless of the social studies topic being studied at the time. If the social studies topic was slavery, coming up with non-offensive questions that related to whatever math topic was being studied at the time could be extremely difficult.</p>
<p>In this case, perhaps the people who imposed the requirement should be fired, not the teachers who wrote the questions.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>“If 105 Jews are cremated every 14 days at Auschwitz, how many Jews are cremated in four days?” </p>
<p>I don’t guess that question makes light of the holocaust either…:rolleyes: I am not suggesting there’s an horror scale equivalency between American slavery and the WWII Nazi Holocaust, but 300 years of institutionalized human bondage is right up there on the list of clearly inappropriate topics upon which to center a matter-of-factly worded math question.</p>
<p>I agree, however, with the thought that this move was staggeringly stupid. Also, insensitive to the extreme. Not long after school desegregation here in Va., my fourth grade teacher assigned an essay topic to the whole class: Write about what your typical day would be like if you were a little 10 year old boy/girl in 1776. That assignment devastated me, because being one of a handful of black students in the class, the answer was not, I knew, one over which to work up enthusiasm. I’m sure this middle aged white teacher had been assigning that very essay for years prior to having black students sitting in her classes. She just didn’t stop to think for even a second. That was the problem.</p>
<p>It also shows more of what’s wrong with a lot of the education system, besides the total lack of sense of appropriateness. I, too, thought this was a joke when I read it. </p>
<p>However, assigning math teachers to write social studies based questions is not the way to make the curriculum interdisciplinary. It just trivializes the whole concept. A real interdisciplinary math/social studies lesson might have the kids study pioneers and then calculate how much food it would take to feed so many people and how long to cook it. It’s not just changing the “characters” in the story problem, as it were, or changing how many baskets someone made to how many beatings a slave received. </p>
<p>I just wish I could believe this was an isolated incident.</p>
<p>I’m confused about the reaction to this. How, exactly, is this making light of slavery? I thought the complaint was going to be that math curriculum was being used to indoctrinate kids on social issues like slavery.</p>
<p>If the word problem was designed to show how much advantage the 3/5 compromise in the Constitution gave to slave states, would that be objectionable, or educational?</p>
<p>Totally different, Hunt. The word problem you suggest would give insight into the way numbers were manipulated for political/social reasons, and could lead to discussion of how, why that happens, as well as motives, repercussions, ethical issues, etc.</p>
<p>The number of beatings a day merely, as Tango puts it so well, substitutes counting atrocities instead of counting apples. There’s no critical thinking, just relabeling which trivializes the history.</p>
<p>Hunt,are you kidding? You don’t see anything wrong with the subject matter here? How racist can you get?</p>
<p>Hayden, this question does not develop critical thinking. This teacher missed the whole point of cross curriculum teaching in addition to writing very insensitive material. There are ways to help develop critical thinking through the use of cross teaching though. Tango had a good example of pioneers, and i am sure many could come up with other ideas too. </p>
<p>This teacher just missed the point all together!</p>
<p>
I’m sorry, I don’t get what’s “racist” about this. I think the problem is what others have suggested, that the question doesn’t really teach anything about slavery, except to remind students that it existed. But it did exist, and it’s not racist to point out that fact, or the fact that it often involved beatings and other cruel treatment. Does anybody think that these questions suggest somehow that slavery was OK?</p>
<p>The rapist attacked seven women in a year, if he wasn’t caught for ten years how many women could he rape?</p>
<p>Drunk drivers are caught one out ten times, how many times did bob drink and drive if he was just caught twice?</p>
<p>Vs</p>
<p>One in five rapes goes unreported, if 100 rapes were reported las year, how many were not?</p>
<p>35percent of automobile accident deaths are caused by drunk drivers, of 350 highway deaths, how many were caused by drinking and driving?</p>
<p>seahorserock is tying math into sex ed and drivers ed now! See how well cross curriculum teaching can work! </p>
<p>In all seriousness, much of this is about appropriate wording and sensitivity to context. And assuring that questions asked really meet an educational need, not just using slavery/rape/car deaths to fill in the blank. The idea really is to connect math to real life and teach critical thinking. Unfortunately, that was lost in this instance.</p>