Teacher fired over math problems

OMG....

Whichever parent or administrator complained about this has never been around a 3rd grade kid.  Those questions are hysterical, and the kids would eat them up.  My kid would be going....while the leeches ate some of the fleas, so assume 1/2 of the fleas are missing so the real number is....

My kids love the weird facts of Guiness, gross out books like Yucky Science (I think that is the name) and other things.  It amuses and engages kids, all of whom, by third grade are smart enough to know this stuff ain't real.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mom'sfolly 

OMG....

 

Whichever parent or administrator complained about this has never been around a 3rd grade kid.  Those questions are hysterical, and the kids would eat them up.  My kid would be going....while the leeches ate some of the fleas, so assume 1/2 of the fleas are missing so the real number is....

 

My kids love the weird facts of Guiness, gross out books like Yucky Science (I think that is the name) and other things.  It amuses and engages kids, all of whom, by third grade are smart enough to know this stuff ain't real.

No kidding!  Kids play violent, gory video games that are way worse than the math problems.  Heck, for some of those kids their own home lives are worse than those math problems.  And the kids aren't even going to pay all that much attention to the "violence" in these math problems - they are going to be too busy thinking the problems are hilarious and trying to figure out the answer. 

So much for creative teaching methods to get the kids engaged in the work so they might actually learn something.  Oh, I forget, kids are just supposed to be taught how to pass the various standardized tests, they aren't actually supposed to be learning things that are useful in life and they certainly aren't suppposed to be learning how to think outside the box.

Another case of overreacting administrators.

When I was a teaching intern for a biology course, I helped the teacher prepare exams. The weirder and wilder the question the better, because we wanted the pupils to learn how to sift out the unnecessary details from the core question or problem.

Anyway, if I were that math teacher, being that my sense of humor never evolved beyond the 3rd grade level, my questions would have been grosser. Instead of the dying thing, I'd say something like, "...John pooped out 537 of the marbles, which were then collected in a cup and thrown into the garden compost pile where they were subsequently ingested by 9 raccoons, one of whom barfed up 7 marbles and pooped out 15 of them, the second one pooped out 3 marbles and barfed up 17..." and so forth.

I would have gotten drop-kicked out the door in half the time that it took for them to fire that math teacher. lol

Quote:

Originally Posted by dainerra 

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/teacher-fired-assigning-violent-math-problems-third-graders-201910368.html

 

"John's father gave him 1359 marbles on his birthday. John swallowed 585 marbles and died. 9 of John's friends came for his funeral the next day. John's grieving father gave the remaining marbles to John's friends in equal numbers. How many marbles did each friend get?"

 

is an example of the math problems.

Everyone knows a lethal dose of marbles is well over 600 marbles.

Quote:

Originally Posted by GardenerGal 

Another case of overreacting administrators.

When I was a teaching intern for a biology course, I helped the teacher prepare exams. The weirder and wilder the question the better, because we wanted the pupils to learn how to sift out the unnecessary details from the core question or problem.

Anyway, if I were that math teacher, being that my sense of humor never evolved beyond the 3rd grade level, my questions would have been grosser. Instead of the dying thing, I'd say something like, "...John pooped out 537 of the marbles, which were then collected in a cup and thrown into the garden compost pile where they were subsequently ingested by 9 raccoons, one of whom barfed up 7 marbles and pooped out 15 of them, the second one pooped out 3 marbles and barfed up 17..." and so forth.

I would have gotten drop-kicked out the door in half the time that it took for them to fire that math teacher. lol

 

I KNOW! The wierder, and wilder it is, the more the kids like it! Our 3rd graders would love this!! (from my school) and its not that violent, and ya, at this age they now its not real

People lose their marbles all the time... what's the big deal?

This school is a wee bit too politically correct.  My guess is it made the news because it is a charter school.

That teacher needs to put that on his/her resume!  Someone with a sense of humor  will hire them.

It seems the proper response might have been to call the teacher into the Principal's office and tell him to tone it down a bit because some of the parents were getting upset.

However, newspapers never give you all the facts and they all seem to put their own slant on everything, so maybe the math was an excuse to get rid of a teacher who causes a lot of on-going problems.