‘If Fred Got Two Beatings Per Day…’ Homework Asks

I thought teachers were supposed to be intelligent.

Math and history are two different subjects, or couldn’t the school system see this ? It’s important to teach appropriate history at an appropriate age. This math homework is absolutely outrageous. Whoever wrote this, and whoever approved it, needs to be FIRED !!!!

This is why our child goes to a private school now in Georgia. This isn’t news to me, the work our kids are being given is incomprehensible to say the least. I cannot believe how “dumbed down” our public school system is just to be sure “no child is left behind”. As for most parents out there, I bet most of them didn’t even know about this because they are not involved in their children’s school work; they feel it is the schools job to raise their kids so they can grow up and support them when welfare runs out.

I’m more interested in did the students come up the right answers than worrying about yet another thing for blacks to moan and complain about.

These questions didn’t come from the school district. Every district’s approved curriculum is scrutinized by people who would/could never- in this day and time- allow this material to enter a classroom. However, teachers do have autonomy to create supplemental instructional materials… which these teachers did, without a CLUE as to the stupidity and/or serious implications of their actions.

That response…from the district spokesperson… Trust me! That was a district’s carefully constructed response concerning unionized workers. And, it really meant: “Oh, trust! We don’t like this, and they WILL regret it.” They won’t come out of it smelling like roses, at all. This is a big mess. And districts absolutely HATE negative media coverage and any activity they could be sued over…

omg this is really sad

Is this the NEW-NEW-NEW math? Guess regular math was too boring so we had to add an element of racism into the mix to “keep the students motivated” ???? Jesus who comes up with this crap?!?! And if teachers can’t even decide what materials to use and are being fed crap like this is there any hope for better educational standards in this country?

Correct me if I’m mistaken but, I believe this question regarding the oranges is written
incorrectly. How can the tree be picked if there are no oranges on it? The statement says
that it HAD 56 oranges, not has.

MICHAEL: “Correct me if I’m mistaken but, I believe this question regarding the oranges is written incorrectly. How can the tree be picked if there are no oranges on it? The statement says that it HAD 56 oranges, not has.” – - – Okay, since you asked. Slavery and the orange picking event happened in the past. Therefore, past tense is appropriate because the tree had 56 oranges on it back in the past when there were slaves around to pick them.

TOMMY NICHOLS: “Really though, I see nothing wrong here. There is no racism involved in this. Slaves picked fruit, they picked cotton, and they were beaten by their masters. It is a dark part of history, but are we supposed to ignore it? Your kids aren’t stupid. Rather than focus on being politically correct, we should teach our youth about the past so we do not repeat our mistakes.” – - – I completely agree with this also. And no, the ABC sensor did not like it when a tried to make that same point a while ago also.

This is the dumbest math lesson ever. Teaching kids in history class that slavery happened is one thing. But having them do math problems on subjects like beatings is nuts.
If there is a class covering the topic of child abuse in high school should the math problems ‘integrate’ and have them calculate the numbers of beatings a child received? Of course not.

@B-K KnightRider & Tommy Nickels – The point you’re both trying hard to miss is that this is not how you do cross-curricular coursework. Explain how having kids calculate how many oranges a slave can pick is historically educational in any way shape or form. You both know it isn’t. They could have for instance asked the students to subtract the dates for things like the beginning and ending of the civil war, drafting and issuance of the emancipation proclamation. Adding the states mentioned in the first part of the EP and those in the second part. This one would in fact include Georgia which would be particularly educational for these students. These are just a few of hundreds that would have been actual cross-curricular coursework. Were these people trying to be racist? I couldn’t say but frankly if this is their best effort they shouldn’t be teaching.

This is typical of a southern racist state that has no cares about how the children of today are taught. Is the school board really that ignorant as to what is going on in their school system.

The odd thing about our history and slavery is white people would like to forget about it more then black people would. History is history. Abuse is a abuse. I wonder how many people will be up in arms when ask about Jamestown. There was one husband eating wife, and wife eating children. Start making up math question related to that. Ask question about how many times the white have killed the Indians. Truth be told white people dont want to remember thier history, only when it seem justified to them.

As soon as I saw this I knew it was to go along with them teaching about slavery. Everybody let your breath out.

GLACIA: “Explain how having kids calculate how many oranges a slave can pick is historically educational in any way shape or form. You both know it isn’t.” – - – Wrong. I don’t know anything of the kind, and I already explained how it is historically educational. IF the children are being taught that slaves picked oranges or cotton or anything else then there is NOTHING wrong with teaching EXACLTY the same thing in two different ways. The FACTS they are being taught are identical. The ONLY difference is how the SAME information/facts relates to two different disciplines. There is no friggin difference between the same facts in two different subjects. How exactly was the lesson racist? It did no treat blacks any differently than how they were actually treated in history. If did not teach that blacks are or slaves were inferior. There was nothing racist about it.

I actually think that the oranges question was wrong because the answer is zero! That was why the lazy slave got the beating in the first place. But in all seriousness, what are the state and teachers thinking? Have they really left their brains behind? What are we paying them for. And finally, is this how we see ourselves becoming great again?

Liberal crap meant to inflame… pure and simple.

Ok bkknightrider and any others who agree that this is appropriate, how about we ask the question, “HOW MANY WHITE PEOPLE DOES IT TAKE TO STEAL LAND AND ENSLAVE OTHER PEOPLE BASED UPON THE FACT THEY ARE DIFFERENT”. or, HOW MANY WHITE PEOPLE DOES IT TAKE TO SELL OFF ANOTHER PERSON’S BABIES? HOW MANY WHITE PEOPLE DOES IT TAKE TO MAKE A SERIAL KILLER? OH OH Lets not forget, HOW MANY WHITE PEOPLE DOES IT TAKE TO START WARS, STEAL FOLKS RETIREMENT MONEY ETC. NOT COOL!!!!! While I believe history should be taught and not forgotten lest we are doomed to repeat it, This is NOT THE WAY. Political correctness has NOTHING to do with it. How about just exhibiting COMMON DECENCY AND RESPECT. Or should I ask HOW MANY WHITE PEOPLE DOES IT TAKE TO DISPLAY THOSE CHARACTERISITCS. MY APOLOGIES TO MY CAUCASIAN FAMILY, FRIENDS AND FELLOW POSTERS. I AM ONLY TRYING TO MAKE A POINT

To all my fellow white humans who think that black people are looking for “something to moan and complain about”, (as Susan said above–this also includes the other “logically” slanted folks too, Ha! Please make note that you are NOW the minority and your projection of cultural and human insensitivity will come back to you and your descendents 100 fold…Karma is real and it wil really happen to YOU! So be it! That is all!

Can the human race sink any lower?

Yes its the truth about the past, unfortunately. However, this is too inappropriate for 3rd graders! Yes slavery went on for hundreds of years, but even if you are trying to incorporate history with math, the avg THIRD GRADER won’t be able to grasp the full concept of slavery in his/her brain! And won’t this stir up controversy between the kids? Black boy/gir to white boy/girll: your people beat mine so now I get to beat you! Here’s another one. White boy/girl to black boy/girl: haha, you were beaten, cause you’re dirty and nasty. TRUST ME, I’ve seen it happen so many times! I’ve been in that situation before. I’m from the south, and its ugly! This is just sickening.

WHO CARES. The crap in school is so boring that it’s hard to learn. Everything is so dry and uninteresting. This adds some fun and entertainment in education, which every student needs. The only thing that students get from schools these days is stress….and then more stress and more stress. I actually find this quite refreshing.

This story made be LOL big time. Since when is slavery racist? Typical liberals trying to bring race into something to keep the controversy alive!

This is a complete outrage. Fire the teacher responsible for these questions. This smacks of ignorance and insensitivity. So glad I don’t live in the South. How did the black students in the class feel about these questions?

Whoever set these questions should be fired.

No excuses. No “explanations”.

Well….its news alright!

I wouldn’t have believed it but here it is in black and white……..I want to know where this came from and who is responsible for this horrible, insane and insulting racist crap……..This school district is broken in the worst possible way………Nothing less than a full investigation will be acceptable…. …..What else is going on in the class room ? Find it and fix it, now………….

The sad thing about this is if you tell a kid that he is inferior and if you do it long enough, he begins to believe it. A good teacher and a good school system should be teaching these kids that by doing the hard work and applying themselves, they can be anything in the world they want to be. The payoff of this would be less people on welfare and dependent on others and you do this regardless of the color of their skin, sexual orientation or religion. Do you all realize that in a few short years that the white race will be a minority? Maybe then you will sadly understand that being jerks is the only thing you have left to hold onto. And I, FYI am a white person.

y’know what? I think these slaves were in Egypt picking oranges as the other slaves built the pyramids. And most of those slave owners were (Gasp!)….black. And the orange picking slaves being beaten were white. Gosh, try as hard as I might, I just can’t work up any false indignation or fake outrage. Must not be cut out to be a liberal.

E looks like su’m foowl got trolled like a bee-yatch, Holla!

Department of Communication and Media Relations Sloan Roach, Executive Director
678-301-6020 / fax: 678-301-6030 (Instructional Support Center)
Office of the Governmental Liaison/Community Ombudsman David McCleskey (Part-Time) 678-301-7319 / fax: 678-301-7326 (Instructional Support Center)

While the questions are inappropriate and pointless, there is nothing racial here at all. It NEVER mentions race whatsoever anywhere. Just about every country in the world at some point in history endured some sort of slavery

To those in favor of the questions swith the questions, I ask you this…

Suppose that a sex ed teacher and a math teacher devised similar questions. Or, suppose that a religion teacher and a math teacher devised similar questions. I’ll spare this forum the questions that we came up with…. Especially in the case of religion, it wouldn’t take too long and we would hear the words: bigot, zealot, and extremist coming out of your mouths.

If we follow the logic of those in favor — “all these teachers are doing is attempting broaden our children’s perspective.” How wonderful. This mentality shows a complete lack of judgement on multiple levels.

Well, We are talking about the state of Georgia, need we say more.

-NORMAN “Truth be told white people dont want to remember thier history, only when it seem justified to them” Norman, it reads as though you may be a racist against white people for your ignorant comment, as if all white people in America have the exact same beliefs. Grow up and stop reliving the past and hating white people. And last to DAVID, your comment was equally ignorant, and you may be a racist as well. Stop assuming. Why would white people take offense to the “slave owner’s are rapist” scenario? It is a fact of history as well. Also, none of us were alive then and had nothing to do with slavery, but black people look at us(white people) like we are responsible. No we are not, the government of that time was for allowing it to be legal. I guess there are racist people of all color……

Come on people!!! This is an honest attempt at creative learning! At first I was taken back, but then I really understood that these teachers are doing more good than harm. It gives the students a very good VISUAL of the HISTORY they would normally gloss over in their soc studies. A word problem enable the student to repeat, vidualize, and come up with the answer. As they are doing this particular set of problems, they are going to internalize exactly HOW wrong Fred’s life was. Hence, they will get a real good history lesson as the solve otherwise mundane arithmetic. Lighten up, we are ALL minorities and you should be MORE worried about how oppressed EVERYONE in the world CURRENTLY is…let’s do a math problem: There are 7 billion slaves in the world who consume way too many resources. The There are about 500 million so-called royals or global leaders that want and need these global natural resources. 1hat would be the quickest way to eliminate 7 billion useless eaters? That”s what I thought…WAKE UP, sheeple!!!

Come on people!!! This is an honest attempt at creative learning! At first I was taken back, but then I really understood that these teachers are doing more good than harm. It gives the students a very good VISUAL of the HISTORY they would normally gloss over in their soc studies. A word problem enable the student to repeat, visualize, and come up with the answer. As they are doing this particular set of problems, they are going to internalize exactly HOW wrong Fred’s life was. Hence, they will get a “real” good history lesson as the solve otherwise mundane arithmetic. Lighten up, we are ALL minorities and you should be MORE worried about how oppressed EVERYONE in the world CURRENTLY is…let’s do a math problem: There are 7 billion slaves, uh, I mean, humans, in the world who consume way too many resources. Then there are about 500 million so-called royals or global leaders that want and need these global natural resources. What would be the quickest way to eliminate 7 billion useless eaters? That’s what I thought…WAKE UP, sheeple!!!

HE SHOULD BE FIRED FOR BEING A JERK, HE KNOWS WHAT HE’S DOING, ANY TEACHER THAT HAS WASTED THIER EDUCATION ON SOMETHING SO RUTHLUESS SHOULD BE HANGING WITH AN APPLE IN HIS BIG MOUTH. GOD BLESS HIS LOUSY SOUL, HE WILL NEED A JOB SOON. FIRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRED HIS BUTT.

“….and for today’s current history and math lesson, students, solve this problem: Jose robs three stores on Monday and three more on Tuesday. If he continues at this rate, how many stores will he have robbed by Friday? Oh, you’d like a problem a little more difficult? OK, then boys and girls, let’s look at Dorita, Velveeta and Chiquita…..” Are you kidding me? Were these teachers seeing the larger picture or have they been distracted by all of the requirements on schools today? Is this the result of the PC cultural sensitivity atmosphere, anti bullying programs, gay recognition rights, federal assessment performance mandates, funding problems, etc.? Where did common sense go?

Quite frankly, what I find appuling about this is that there are people on this fourm that think this is acceptable. Imagine if instead the questions were “John has sex with three women a day, and one in 10 women have an STD. How long should it take for John to contract an STD?” Would you be offended? I fail to see how desensitizing children to sex is worse than desensitizing them to slavery. I would rather see a sex obsessed society, than one that is ok with slavery any day of the week.

“KKK enrollment must be down. Time to recruit!! This is atrocious! The educators who were involved in preparing and distributing this test should be fired. There is no excuse, No, oh we meant nothing by it. These people have no place teaching children. Frightening!

Posted by: mbriggs | January 8, 2012, 9:20 am 9:20 am”

Why don’t you get your facts straight. There are MORE KKK groups IN THE NORTH!

reverse racism ,keep it up

History is history – the past. Often times its ugly and incorporates all colors of humans that inhabit Earth. Slavery & beatings have happened to all the colors. When do we get past COLOR & RACE and think in terms of humans. People/humans come in all colors and all races. Throughout history, attrocities have happened to all colors & races – to place “more has happened to MY color & race” is ridiculous. Lets see, had the question been rearranged to all the nicknames for Jewish, Indians, Italians, Irish, Hispanic, etc etc – would it had passed without notice? I am neither black or white – I am BEIGE. When can we stop assigning COLOR to people? When can we get past the importance of race and where your 100+ years ago ancestors came from?? You were born in United States – you are an American. Born somewhere else and became a citizen – then you can use your prior nationality. Lets see, that makes me a BEIGE Philippino-American. I wish we could stop constantly using African/American or start letting everybody add their country of choice to be hyphenated in front of American.

I went back and re-read the story and watched the video clip after reading all of the comments. I think that a lot of people have made the assumption that a white teacher or white school board members wrote this. I can’t find anything that states that fact. I know this area of Gwinnett County and I can assure you that whites are a minority (about 5 or 10%) in this area and many of the surrounding school districts. You can research it if you do not believe me. The schools are usually listed as 60% black, 10% white, and 30% “other”. I really can’t understand why the catagory of other as it should probably read 25% hispanic and 5% other. In any event, the majority of teachers in these districts are also black. Is it possible that a black teacher or black school board member(s) who pick the subject matter did this because they want to keep white hate alive????? Just asking because it seems reasonable.

I say that the Social Studies Teacher AND the Math Teacher need to take their rightful place in the Unemployment line ~ IMMEDIATELY!

This was so heinus that I can not describe my disbelief. As a person who has been in the middle of racist environments, on the job, it is no wonder we are still at war with other races than our own. I think that the lessons of the Holocaust, slavery, civil rights, etc all should never be forgotten and addressed in the appropriate context. I am still so incredibly unable to reconcile this total disregard for history and lessons learned. Would you send home a biology test asking, “what would happen if you tied two cats to a rope and slung them over a clothesline?”

Referencing slavery is racist? really? It certainly isn’t the subject matter for third grade math, but it isn’t really racist, considering slavery has happened to a majority of the races on earth. This isn’t racist, it’s just stupid.

I wonder how the math teacher would feel if an English teacher at the school gave the following homework assignment: “A math teacher at the school gave the following problems as homework (insert problems here). Some people see this as being rascist and others see it as being stupid. Your assignment is to decide whether you think this was rascism or stupidity, and then write a paragraph to explain your answer.” Let’s see this would be incorporating Current Events (news article), history (explaining slavery, rascism), ethics…and so on. This was RIDICULOUS on so many levels. And, as a retired math teacher of 32 years I am totally appalled!!!!

This is just appalling!!! if they wanted to combine social studies and math, they could ask questions like “There’s 88 countries in the world. If 12 speak english as their main language, how many countries do not speak english?”

I have no idea if those numbers are correct so before people go look them up and tell me I’m wrong, yeah, i know.

Well the bible is all for slavery and stoning so what’s the prob?

if these questions are o.k how about this for the ugly truth……….if 3 illegal aliens cross the border and each have three anchor babies… over the next 2 years how much tax money is spent on all illegals

Most of Georgia is very red. Gwinett county is very “blue”. Doesn’t surprise me.

In your opinion, do Black people have a right to their own countries in Africa and the Carribean? Nigeria is 99% Black, are the Nigerians obligated to “assimilate” with millions of non-Blacks to solve the “race problem”? Or is it only White people who you demand be blended out of existence in our own countries? Are you only anti-White, or do you want Black Genocide also? Anti-racist is a code word for anti-White.

Though poorly the question was poorly worded, alluding to history is not racist! What a ridiculous accusation. Should we just pretend that slavery never existed in this country? The parent who wanted his child to remain ignorant of it is the fool here, not the teacher who assigned these problems.

Africa for the Africans, Asia for the Asians, White Countries for Everyone
There will still be Africans in Africa. There will still be Asians in Asia. But my race is set to be blended out of existence through mass immigration and forced assimilation.
That’s genocide.
This is happening in ALL white countries and ONLY white countries.
This is genocide through racial replacement.
Wake up and fight the system!

There is absolutely NO EXCUSE for this. You cannot tell me that a teacher reading this would not have found it offensive themselves & if not, they don’t have the brains to teach anyone’s child … white, black or any ethnicity. As for the excuse of cross referencing, nice try, but NOT BUYING WHAT YOU’RE SELLING. Teach slavery issues in a social studies class, and try to get it right.

If two teachers do something inappropriate and stupid and their union defends them, how many students lose?

It is stories like these that make people think ill of teachers.

Africa for the Africans,Asia for the Asians,white countries for EVERYBODY!

Mass immigration and “assimilation” forced ONLY on white countries= WHITE GENOCIDE!

Anti-racist is a code word for anti-white.

It’s amusing to see the comments from people saying this is why we need to abolish the dept. of education, that the administrators should all be fired, etc. If you actually watch the video, you will learn that these problems were made up by the teachers. They did not come from administrators, the district or the dept of education. This is exactly what happens when you cut “the bureaucracy” and give states and districts free rein to do whatever they want. The problems in the country such as the mortgage mess, oil spills and the wall street meltdown can all be traced back to lack of regulation, not big government.

this is absolutely unacceptable!!! This is wrong on so many levels. I cannot believe they had the audacity to include such content in student assignments. This needs to be addressed at a much higher level than the school board officials. It’s always “better to ask for forgiveness, than permission”. If this type of ignorance is easily dismissed, expect other educational institutions to do the samething, but in a much subtle way. . Open your eyes people!!!

I am outraged by this. Not only these homework comments, but to the postings I have read here. Equal for all, north south, east and west, regardless of color. Or did I miss something? It is ok to teach math and incorporate social studies into word problems, but some teacher should have had discretion and re-worked the problems. Any good teacher would have. I know I would have and I would have copied and protested this worksheet to my building principal and superintendant. I never would have given this to any student. I am a teacher. I know equality. I’m not from the south, I’m from the north. Anyone that feels that these types of questions are okay to be given to young impressionable minds is an arrogant ignorant person. To the one that stated “I’m more interested in seeing if the kids came up with the correct answers” Are you kidding me?!?!!!!! What type of person are you. Any student can perform basic math if they are taught correctly in an warm and supportive environment that is condusive to learning. Also… these types of questions would never be asked in this manner on a standardized test. SHAME on the district. I hope they get fined and sued!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To Giant Chicken Weasel.. anyone with half a brain will know that the Frederick referred to is Frederick Douglass. What other country would talk about slaves and beatings? Don’t add insult to injury!!!

And we wonder why we our educational system is rated so much lower than many other first-world countries. Yes, the horrible actions in history should be taught to all students – lest we forget the lessons we should be learning from the past. Yes, these issues should be taught at an age where the students can cognitively understand the context in which it occurred. Randomly throwing poorly written, demeaning questions into a math test is just ignorant. I don’t care if the teacher in question is white, black, purple, or pink polka dotted. That doesn’t affect the lack of age or context inappropriateness. I agree with other commentors that there are many, many other scenarios that could have been incorporated into the test that would have accomplished the same integrated teaching goals, without creating yet another reason to mock the U.S., and especially southern-states’, educational systems.

Americathepitiful, your history facts are not accurate. Tribal leaders didn’t sell their own people. Warring tribes would catch and turn over their ‘enemies’, much as other countries did all the way back in ancient history. It might surprise you to know Africa isn’t one big country, just like Europe and Asia, there are different countries and cultural groups within them.
No one complaining about those idiotic questions on the math assignment is re-complaining about slavery, but the stupidity of putting questions about the unpleasantness of slavery in a casual math problem for 3rd graders.
In my opinion, serious, horrible subjects like our history of slavery should not be taught in detail until 6th grade at least.

What I have to wonder is why anyone assumes that these slaves were black…As if slavery is confined to US History. Perhaps Hebrew people should start getting upset because their people were enslaved at some point. Sure…I get it. We shouldn’t be talking about slavery in a math class…but I also get it that slavery was a problem and still is a problem for many people today. Perhaps the moral of this story is that there are a lot of people out there who are unwilling to accept the “slavery” problem and there are even more who are unwilling to attempt to solve it.

Cross-curricular? Really? That’s their excuse for stupidity? What’s worse is that they probably thought it was funny.

What the hell is wrong with you damn teachers. Math and history is two different subjects and there are different because they do not need to be mixed together. Black is a race. White is a race. God created us all. God makes no mistakes so can’t we all lessen to get alone. Stop being judgmental. God runs this world not white people. You choose your destination that you will go to after death. Choose wisely. #GodBless

Given that the school is mostly non-white, I would imagine these questions, if anything, were aimed at promoting racism against white people. I doubt even that though, I think they were just tie-ins to other things the students were learning at the time and were pulled out of context. What I find truly amusing here is that there is no reference to time period, country, or ethnicities in any of these problems. There’s no slant to them. They’re very straightforward. The questions are inappropriate, for sure, but the only racist interpretation I can get out of them given their context within the Gwinnet public school system, is anti-white, but that’s a hell of a stretch. What’s even more amusing than that, is that people are complaining about racism being so horrible, but they have no problem throwing a whole state of Americans under the bus as a bunch of ignorant, racist hillbillies, which I think is the REAL aim of the article. The South is a lot more complex than that.

someone mentioned blacks committing crimes more than whites.
pls consider that maybe blacks are wrongly accused and arrested more than we are?
just a thought.

final analysis, the choice subject was absolutely wrong for a math class no matter what color the slaves might have been, but lets be honest -we all know they were talking about Black slaves.

This is mind blowing stuff, as a Norwegian living in the states it furies me and breaks my heart.
This person or people who made this should be fired and put to trial.
I’m baffled after listening to the schools respond and excuse for this math assignment.
This is cruel to “desensitize” an extremely important subject and history as slavery into kids math assignments, like wise beatings? What have beatings to do into it too?
What’s next? ” if Linda’s mom made $300- $500 a night at the strip club, how much would she make aproxamently a month after lindas mom paid $100 a rent a week for the trailer they lived in and?” next assignment ; ” Linda’s moms boyfriend drinks 3 6 packs of beer each day and each pack cost $5, how much must Linda’s mom pay for her boyfriends beer a month?” or ‘” Linda’s mom and Linda get beat up by Linda’s moms boyfriend 3 times a day, how much beatings do they get each a year?” this is outrageous and does not fit into any math assignment.
Disappointing and narrow minded cruel, super racist and dehumanizing teaching for future generations! We as people are BETTER than this, enough is enough!

Just in time for Black History Month at many schools around the country. Does this mean January was White History Month? Or is that some other month?

Yep, I get the part about combining subjects and that the intent was simply to enhance the kids’ learning and retention of the social studies material by incorporating it into math as well. But it should be obvious that the attempt to do this was extremely poorly executed, that making the historic slaves’ humiliation a subject of the same type of cold calculation that their owners probably engaged in would, as one commenter here correctly said, more likely desensitize children to it. It would be one thing if the math problems were centered around highlighting the unfairness to the slaves, like how much their labor was really worth versus what the lodgings and food given them was worth, how many middle-class-suitable homes the plantation owners could buy with their yearly profits vs. how many their workers could buy if they were fairly paid. But as someone else pointed out, a lot of this would still be hard for a lot of third-graders to get their minds around, and a better decision would be just to do something else with the math and perhaps combine social studies with language skills instead.

I understand that this was NOT the teachers fault, as they weren’t the ones to write these problems, HOWEVER, if I reviewed this page BEFORE sending it home for homework, I would have opted to personally write out math problems and photocopy enough for the whole class; then, I would have take these papers to whomever is ranked above me, or even taken it back to the district, expressing to them how I would NEVER send those papers out as homework, classwork, WHATEVER!

Will people please stop being so ignorant. Slavery is a part of our history in third grade we began learning about the civil war. Don’t hide children from the past let them learn from it. By learning from our mistakes we can improve upon them and make them better in the future. Nothing is more frustrating then seeing a teacher crucified over a simple math assignment because people are to sensitive in this day and age. This is insane to crucify a teacher for actually incorporating history and mathematics into one worksheet. God forbid you have to explain to your children something that happened. What’s next are we going to start hiding the Holocaust, slavery, etc from our younger generations? The softer our society gets the more vulnerable we are to those who withstand a tolerance, and those who accepted their pasts and learned from them. This teacher should not be punished for such an assignment. The parents of these children should be ashamed that they cannot accept America’s history themselves.