HuffPo: Slavery Examples Used In Georgia School Worksheet Upsets Parents

[racaulk]

Parents of students at Beaver Ridge Elementary School in Norcross, Ga., are outraged at the school district's response to the reports of using examples of slavery in math word problems, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

The word problems in questions include references to slavery and "beatings," according to the paper.

"Each tree had 56 oranges. If 8 slaves pick them equally, then how much would each slave pick?" and

"If Frederick got two beatings per day, how many beatings did he get in 1 week?"

It's not just the word problems that are sparking criticism, but the way it's being handled. According to the AJC, district officials said the elementary school's principal will "work with teachers to come up with more appropriate lessons."

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Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/08/examples-of-slavery-in-school-worksheet_n_1192512.html

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Two embedded videos on this story are provided at the link. Also, n2doc posted a thread on this topic in General Discussion, for those that may be interested: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002133014

While we live in the 21st Century, some Georgians prefer to remain in the 19th. Absolutely disgusting.

[groundloop]

1. Most news outlets haven't reported the entire story. Still, it's questionable judgement.

Last edited Sun Jan 15, 2012, 07:09 PM - Edit history (1)

First off, my comments are in no way endorsing the math word problems which were used. I'm just pointing out part of the story which has been left out of most news reports.

Those students, as part of the social studies curriculum, were studying slavery in America. The teacher who wrote those word problems was incorporating what students were studying about slavery into the math lesson.

With that fact in mind, how do others here feel about this story?

[MACARD]

2. completely twisted

like when Romneys PAC ran that ad that had Obama quoting Mccain in saying "If we talk about the economy we will lose" sounds totally wrong when out of context.

My mother is a teacher and i know from her experience that this is the kind of thing to expect. the School system will never back the teacher, if a student asks a teach to bend over and take it in the rear they have to do it or the school will threaten them with not only promising to fire the teach but telling her (its elementary 99% of elementary school teachers are women) that she will never teach again in the state. while they can't do that the teacher does not and is too scared to challenge, so they bend over and take it. this is what we get when we let the 1% run our schools.