Friday, 20 January 2012
While in Janesville, the hotel where I am accommodating has seen fit to leave a copy of USA Today outside my door in the morning. That’s very nice of them. Unfortunately, didn’t discover the paper until I was leaving for my busy day. So, I basically just tossed the paper into the room and saved it for “later.”
Later turned out to be today. Tucked away in a side column on page 3A, was a story about a teacher in an Atlanta, Georgia suburb. He resigned. Or maybe it was a she. I don’t know.
“Why did he/she resign?” you ask.
Good question.
It seems this teacher sent their third-graders home with some math work that included math questions such as…
Each tree had 56 oranges. If eight slaves pick them equally, then how much would each slave pick?
Hm. Not sure why the teacher was so fixated on slavery, but it’s hard to see why that was necessary.
This one is worse:
If Frederick got two beatings per day, how many beatings did he get in one week?
Yikes. How stupid is this teacher that they didn’t realize that just about anything would have been better than “beatings”? Why couldn’t Frederick have received two apples, or dollars, or books, or job offers, or DVDs from Red Box?
And while I’m noting how crappy this teacher must be, let’s also take a look at that grammar: “How MUCH would each slave pick?” How MUCH? The word “much” indicates a ratio compared to the whole, so the answer here would have to be one-eighth, or even “their share.” Assuming the teacher wanted their third-graders to do a little division, they should have used the phrase “How MANY,” thereby forcing the correct answer of seven.
Either way, this teacher gets an F.
I loved your use of the word “accommodating” — very clever.
Thanks. I originally typed “staying,” but then I decided to find a less predictable word.
Yeah, most people say the hotel accommodated them, but in your case, you accommodated the hotel (putting the comforter over the window, finding an alternative to the screechy ironing board…).