They’re exactly analogous, actually.
Absolute rubbish. And what exactly about the principal of incorporating social studies into math would demand that teachers suspend their judgment on propriety over these kinds of subjects?
Okay, how about this one (which is directly relevant to a social studies issue (at least I hope they’re learning about it):
It takes a lynch squad an average of 30 minutes to catch and hang a black man. If you have 4 lynch squads out, how many black men can they hang between 9pm and 2am?
Really? You couldn’t calculate the per cent of slave states versus free states?
Actually, most of us have to do across the curriculum planning and that’s not something any sane teacher I know would choose to do. There’s room to budge, there. If I can incorporate math (economics and charts) into a unit on the enslavement/indentured servitude of South America -and teaching this all to Latino kids- without getting fired, surely some third grade teachers can come up with a better idea.
Forty – without pee, rest or lunch breaks.
Oh oh can I answer the next one??
I mean, you’re right. There are some better ways of presenting those problems. I’m not planting my flag and defending this to the death. I think those problems come across badly, but I’m not prepared to call the teachers racist over them.
No, they aren’t.
So what? Since when is the question of "are these people racist in their heart-of-hearts by my own preferred definition of ‘racist’ " the sole important question when something like this comes up.
What is glaringly obvious is that these teachers showed very bad judgment and displayed a shocking lack of sensitivity and common sense.
Yes they are. Your turn.
It is in Georgia’s history. Everything about black-white race relations in America is warped around the fact that African-Americans are the descendants of slaves and white people (unless you go back to the Roman Empire) are not. There is really no way around that and it is deeply dishonest to pretend it doesn’t matter.
Well, it probably doesn’t belong in a third-grade class anyway; but in junior high, they could teach kids about the mathematics of the economics and politics of slavery. E.g., how the aggregate market value of the slaves in antebellum America exceeded the federal budget by X orders of magnitude (ruling out federally-mandated emancipation-with-compensation-to-slaveowners as a practical option).
What the fuck are you on about? I never said it was the only important question, for god’s sake. I’m explaining my point of view.
No, they aren’t. Your questions were more violent, graphic, recent, and sexual in nature. They were also racist to a much more specific degree than the questions posed in Georgia. Your question #1 conveys “Look how bad black people are”, whereas the questions about picking oranges could be interpreted as “look at the awful crap back people were subjected to”. How the fuck you’re think they’re “exactly analogous” is beyond all reason.
Not called Frederick they didn’t, though I suppose he could be a serf.
I live in Fulton, and know all about Gwinnett County. I’d just like to know what Larry Flint has to do with any of this.
I don’t agree. I think it’s a pretty good idea, actually, in that it shows the utility of word problems.
You can use math to show how hard slaves would have had to work.
You can use math to show why slavery was cheaper for slave owners.
The thing is, with a subject like slavery, you have to be really, really careful how you do this, and make it age-appropriate. For third graders, I’d do something much more innocuous, like “A ship takes X days to sail from Africa to Georgia. It travels Y miles a day. How many days does the journey take?”
For advanced grades, you’d want to use math to analyze source data. What you never, ever, ever want to do is use uncontextualized hypotheticals showing slaves in the throes of slavery.
OK, if it takes a Christian five days to plan and execute the shooting of a pornographer . . .
I’m sitting here, pen poised, ready for the rest…
(Waiting for the part about the sex. There has to be a dick joke in there somewhere.)
I’ve been there many times and my sister lived there as well as my best friend who still lives there… very nice middle class area. However that county always seemed to me the off-the-wall hick bigoted country to me from these little bits of news and the history I hear over the years. Putting Flint on the wheel chair for the rest of his life seems in line with this latest bigoted stupid shit they pulled from that neighborhood again. That’s all. 
“I can’t find it in my heart to label them as racist” is a very thin point of view.
Degree doesn’t disable an analogy. The point is that they’re inappropriate ways of presenting any of these topics to student. As for “recent,” it makes no difference at all. To the extent that my examples are “more” anything merely amplifies the analogous impropriety.
You’re looking at each of the questions inordinately narrowly. No. 1 doesn’t just say “look how bad black people are.” It also is a shockingly inappropriate and callous way to approach a subject, exactly like the questions in the OP.
That’s pretty damn ignorant of you. Gwinnett is heavily populated with transplants from other parts of the country. On top of that, the man who (probably) shot Flint isn’t even from there.
Hand wave all you want, they’re shitty, shitty, analogies.