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The 'new' math

Posted at 12:34 PM on February 22, 2013 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Race, Schools

It's hard to know where to start with the list of things that are wrong in the wake of a story out of New York City today.

A teacher had students write math problems, the students wrote math problems about slaves, the teacher handed out the problems, and there are some parents -- some parents -- who wonder what the big deal is?

The teacher involved will apparently be disciplined in some fashion.

Comments (1)

I'm a little unsettled by at least one of the questions--at 5/day, how many times was a slave whipped in a month?--but also agree that it's completely appropriate to address these issues in the classroom. As one of the parents interviewed said, "It happened."

As is often the case, I'm thinking this is probably blown out of proportion by some over-protective helicopter parents for whom calling the teacher and talking about their concerns was never going to be sufficient to calm their sense of outrage.

Questionable decision to let the questions stand as chosen by the students? Yeah, probably. "Completely inappropriate", as one parent has it? Not by a long shot.

Posted by Erik Granse | February 22, 2013 1:38 PM