mom31257 Posted January 21, 2012 Share Posted January 21, 2012 (edited) I don't know if this has been posted yet, but I wanted to share it. Teacher Resigns and Apologizes I think the man was just trying to do his job and shouldn't have to resign. Some parents are suggesting the kids get counseling because of this assignment. What??? I think the questions could have brought up good discussions about how slaves were treated. If the schools are going to be this overly-sensitive about assignments, they shouldn't leave them in the hands of teachers. All the kids in public school should be working on computers using programs that have been thoroughly screened and pre-approved. Is it going to get to the point that teachers will have to turn in a script of what they will say in class so that it can be approved? Can you imagine the drain on education dollars that will be? There better not be class discussion either or someone might be offended by what's said. Edited January 21, 2012 by mom31257 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zaichiki Posted January 21, 2012 Share Posted January 21, 2012 Did you miss the thread about this event? I think most people who posted to it disagree with you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mom31257 Posted January 21, 2012 Author Share Posted January 21, 2012 Did you miss the thread about this event? I think most people who posted to it disagree with you. I must have missed it. Do you have a link? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LucyStoner Posted January 21, 2012 Share Posted January 21, 2012 Dude should not have been given the chance to resign. He should have been fired immediately along with the people who defended this under the lame guise of integrated curriculum materials. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zaichiki Posted January 21, 2012 Share Posted January 21, 2012 I must have missed it. Do you have a link? http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=340160 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mom31257 Posted January 21, 2012 Author Share Posted January 21, 2012 Dude should not have been given the chance to resign. He should have been fired immediately along with the people who defended this under the lame guise of integrated curriculum materials. Do you think he intentionally meant to offend or is a racist? The school population is 95% minority, and the teacher himself is a minority. I think he's probably a teacher who's stressed out with all the paperwork demands and classroom management nightmares and put the assignment together in the wee hours of the night. My dh is a public school teacher in a high school that created academies where students are grouped by their interests. Dh previously taught in a group of teachers that were all social studies teachers. Now he is in a group of teachers covering all the core subjects. They are continually told to make cross-curricular assignments. He works with the math, English, and science teachers to come up with them. This has made me think he never needs to go it alone, for sure. If teachers are in continual fear of losing their jobs for every little mistake they might make, we are quickly going to not have enough teachers in this country. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LucyStoner Posted January 21, 2012 Share Posted January 21, 2012 (edited) Do you think he intentionally meant to offend or is a racist? The school population is 95% minority, and the teacher himself is a minority. Meaning to offend is not the test here IMO. And frankly I do think there is a fair chance it was a racially motivated joke rather than an attempt to integrate curriculum. Regardless of intent, this is at the very best clueless and totally in violation of curriculum review policies. I don't think anyone THIS clueless about what is appropriate and not appropriate belongs in a classroom. I certainly would not want my kids learning from people who would do this. In life you can and do lose jobs for extreme acts like this even if they were just clumsy blunders. Teachers often seem to only lose jobs for criminal acts or budget cuts and that is not doing anyone any favors except for the mediocre and bad teachers. Also, merely using the names of famous people in math problems is not integrating a curriculum. From a purely educational standpoint I am underwhelmed. Edited January 21, 2012 by kijipt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunshine_librarian Posted January 21, 2012 Share Posted January 21, 2012 Where my family is the classes in the school system are scripted, to the point that teachers are audited by what page number they are on in the textbooks. This is supposed to help weed out those bad teachers, you know, the ones who might take more than one day on a concept if their students needed more help. As for the math problems in the newspaper story, I think the teacher crossed a line. It would be one thing for a calculation to be made about how many years slavery was legal for with given dates, or how many states had legal slavery, given total number of states and number where it was not sanctioned. But a question about how much labor a group of slaves could yield in the field trivializes the injustice of the situation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirch Posted January 21, 2012 Share Posted January 21, 2012 (edited) You know, I'd have a problem with it if my child came home with math questions about the number of beatings someone got, regardless of the context. Surely they could have come up with cross-curricular problems that were more neutral in content. I can think of a few possibilities right now. ETA: Neutral isn't really the word I'm looking for. "Less emotionally loaded" or "less disturbing," maybe? Don't get me wrong, students need to learn about those things and wrestle with implications, but I don't think this is the best way to do that, and it's definitely inappropriate for 3rd grade. Edited January 21, 2012 by Kirch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elegantlion Posted January 21, 2012 Share Posted January 21, 2012 You know, I'd have a problem with it if my child came home with math questions about the number of beatings someone got, regardless of the context. Surely they could have come up with cross-curricular problems that were more neutral in content. I can think of a few possibilities right now. ETA: Neutral isn't really the word I'm looking for. "Less emotionally loaded" or "less disturbing," maybe? Don't get me wrong, students need to learn about those things and wrestle with implications, but I don't think this is the best way to do that, and it's definitely inappropriate for 3rd grade. :iagree: We used R&S grammar. It has an endearing way of integrating their lifestyle into the sentences: Brother John (sing, sang, sung) a hymn in church. Which verb is correct? Integrating beatings into math is just asinine. I do think counseling might be going overboard, but I'm sure the school is covering their liability. I can think of about 40 other ways the history lesson could have been tied to math in a more appropriate manner. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ereks mom Posted January 21, 2012 Share Posted January 21, 2012 I think the man was just trying to do his job, and shouldn't have to resign. Well, FWIW, I agree with you. I think the teacher had a lapse in judgment but a reprimand should have been enough. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amber in SJ Posted January 21, 2012 Share Posted January 21, 2012 I think the whole thing was ridiculous, but not emotionally scarring to the kids who had the homework, a reprimand should have been enough. When I was in high school health I was given a multiple choice quiz that included the question; "What is a hormone?" One of the answer choice was; "The sound a prostitute makes." Did I think it was crude & in horrible taste? Yes. Did I think my teacher should be fired? No. Do I remember it 20 years later? Yes. Maybe those math facts will be memorable to the kids who did their homework. Amber in SJ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
readinmom Posted January 21, 2012 Share Posted January 21, 2012 He resigned, cited the shame he had brought upon himself and his family. He will have to live with this whenever he applies for another teaching job. Compassion and mercy... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EKS Posted January 21, 2012 Share Posted January 21, 2012 The problem with these questions is that they trivialize the issue of slavery. If, instead, the teacher used actual historical data so that the calculations were based in reality that might have actually had some merit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mothersweets Posted January 21, 2012 Share Posted January 21, 2012 I think the whole thing was ridiculous, but not emotionally scarring to the kids who had the homework, a reprimand should have been enough.When I was in high school health I was given a multiple choice quiz that included the question; "What is a hormone?" One of the answer choice was; "The sound a prostitute makes." Did I think it was crude & in horrible taste? Yes. Did I think my teacher should be fired? No. Do I remember it 20 years later? Yes. Maybe those math facts will be memorable to the kids who did their homework. Amber in SJ You've gotta be kidding! :001_huh: Maybe the teacher thought no one was actually reading the questions, lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iucounu Posted January 21, 2012 Share Posted January 21, 2012 Props to Henry White for looking out for the multi-brained students! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LibraryLover Posted January 21, 2012 Share Posted January 21, 2012 (edited) How old is he? What's the state of his frontal lobe? ;) Edited January 21, 2012 by LibraryLover Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zaichiki Posted January 21, 2012 Share Posted January 21, 2012 If, instead, the teacher used actual historical data so that the calculations were based in reality that might have actually had some merit. That would have been integrating the curriculum and that would have been wonderful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jennifer3141 Posted January 21, 2012 Share Posted January 21, 2012 Dude should not have been given the chance to resign. He should have been fired immediately along with the people who defended this under the lame guise of integrated curriculum materials. :iagree::iagree::iagree::iagree: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted January 21, 2012 Share Posted January 21, 2012 I think the man was just trying to do his job and shouldn't have to resign. Some parents are suggesting the kids get counseling because of this assignment. What??? I think the questions could have brought up good discussions about how slaves were treated. If the schools are going to be this overly-sensitive about assignments, they shouldn't leave them in the hands of teachers. All the kids in public school should be working on computers using programs that have been thoroughly screened and pre-approved. Is it going to get to the point that teachers will have to turn in a script of what they will say in class so that it can be approved? Can you imagine the drain on education dollars that will be? There better not be class discussion either or someone might be offended by what's said. :001_huh: I don't know that any children should need "counseling" from this (a discussion, yes, absolutely), but as someone stated very eloquently in the other thread, these math problems relegated human suffering to a mathematical equation. They took the human factor out and were incredibly offensive. And as I said in the other thread, I thought they ought to have fired the teacher for sheer stupidity. And I've been a classroom teacher and made my share of bonehead moves. But this wasn't just poor judgment, it was offensive. I totally agree that the problem is that we don't trust teachers to be professionals and make decisions about their classrooms. I have been talking about that as the crux of the issue for years. However, part of being a professional is being decent at what you do. We're in a catch-22 with getting quality teachers. People who have the creative drive, passion and intelligence to teach don't want to because teachers are treated like dirt and given no room to exercise their creative talents (some schools already force teachers to stick to scripts, after all). Creative, talented people don't want to work under those kinds of constraints, especially at mediocre salaries. But if we did away with those constraints, there would be a lot more of this sort of nonsense - teachers already teaching who don't have a common sense bone in their bodies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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