2 + 2 =
I reckon I never quite figured the whole PC thing would get this far:
As reported earlier this week, Teach for America groups across the country are committing themselves to “culturally responsive teaching,” a radical pedagogy used by communist Bill Ayers and other blatant anti-American indoctrinators.
“The site, Culturally Responsive Teaching, Teach for America, says that because math is seen as a domain for old, white men, many students cannot identify with it. Therefore, educators should find ways to relate math to the lives of their students.”
Category: Geezer Alert!
Okay…if you can’t do math, not only will you not get that $15/hr you think you deserve, you’ll be replaced by a machine that knows how to make change.
The evil side of me says, if you can’t do math I can claim I am paying you $25 an hour, but then I can put payroll deductions that you give back to me for the cost of having you on premise.
That way after those deductions you are really getting $10 an hour but you’re too fucking stupid to figure it out because only the old white guy who hired you knows math because he’s a racist rat bastard for being a white guy who knows math…
Let’s eliminate the need to read, too. Reading is SO ethnophobic.
What in the hell is WRONG with those people? Is forced illiteracy their idea of a utopia? Hell, even the REAL communists educated their kids in their desperate efforts to beat the USA in the nuclear arms race.
Math is NOT the demesne of old white men. It’s the arena of intelligent, bright, articulate people. If you can’t do math, how will you know how many days there are in a week, a month or a year? Or when you should take your pills?
Oh, wait – let’s all get the jump on Montag and burn the books now!!
Geezo Pete, I despise those people!!!!!
Jobs in the trades are pretty math-intensive. Without such proficiency, those students can kiss that career path goodbye.
It’s quiet simple, the stupid and the ignorant are much easier to indoctrinate and manipulate, thus the left wants the masses as stupid as they can make and keep them!
1 crack pipe + 2 half full bottles of Thunder Bird + 3 Obama phones + 4 baby mommas + 5 bucks worth of glass bottles and aluminum cans = 19 Cuturally Responsive Teaching Units.
Classic
Sounds like an All-Points Logistics corporate picnic.
A for effort, MCPO!
(since that’s the only thing these kids will get graded on anyway)
I flashed a ghetto-version of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” in my head when I read that….
I was a Soldier. I am a teacher. Teach for America is full of shit. End of message.
There are some good people in it, though. My cousin’s Hispanic, very conservative, and one of the best men I know. He teaches at a disadvantaged school through the program; I think its been beneficial to everyone involved.
It does some to be a swimming pool with a disproportionately large number of turds in it, though. The guy in charge of TFA guys at my cousin’s school thinks it’s ridiculously offensive to address people as “sir” or “ma’am” because you don’t know what gender that person identifies with, and he wears black every Columbus Day as a sign of mourning.
So yeah, if there aren’t any good eggs in your program, I guess you could walk away with that impression.
My own experience is that many of the first and second year teachers are some of the hardest working people you’ll meet. The management? Which often comes from ex-teachers with no other experience and, often, ones who couldn’t find jobs elsewhere? They’re terrible.
As for ‘culturally responsive’ teaching, I don’t give a damn. The math doesn’t change, so if that helps people learn it better? So be it. I don’t care if people teach concepts using bullets in guns, grams of crack or petals on a flower, if more people can do basic math, we’re better off.
You should really take a look at the link provided. It isn’t about teaching math, but propagandizing and indoctrinating young impressionable minds.
And the indoctrinating is the point many seem to miss. This isn’t about educating your kids as much as it’s about socially engineering them for the desired voting outcomes 15 years down the road…
I’m a math guy. I did actually look at the links, and I see a lot of utter garbage with a (very) small smattering of stuff that’s semi-reasonable. But to me, worrying about propaganda and indoctrination [for voting blocks 15 years in the future, like pigmypuncher below says] is like worrying about future fertility when a doctor says you have cancer and need chemo now. It’s not a completely invalid concern, but we really need to tackle the immediate issue first.
Adding to this is that a year or two of ‘culturally responsive teaching’ isn’t going to turn a kid into a mindless robot. If they go on to college, they’re not going to get any of that nonsense (in math classes). If they don’t go on to college, well, the real world has a way of snapping people out of fantasy worlds of cultural sensitivity pretty quick.
All in all, is it ideal? No, I’d prefer people sit down and learn math the way people of every cultural background have for ages now. I find TELLING kids that they’re having a hard time learning it because of their culture gives them an excuse not to try, just as telling kids ‘math is hard’ makes it harder than it would be if you didn’t say anything. It’s a lot of self-defeating methodologies, and I’d love to fight against it. But we need to pick our battles, and right now, having people with basic math skills -and basic reasoning skills- helps make that fight easier in the future.
I completely understand if people view things differently – this issue is certainly not cut and dry. But if I were a math teacher, and my kids for whatever reason learned a whole lot better whenever I donned a pink tutu and spoke in rhyme while doing problem sets, fuck it – I’d do it. I wouldn’t enjoy it, but I’d do it.
Where is that school? I’d love to walk by the door wearing a shirt with Italian and pre-Franco Spanish royalist flags on it come October 12!
I think it was a commentor on this site a few days ago who pointed out that educators who managed the math curriculum prior to WWII taught people who eventually split the atom, saved Europe and America, and put a man on the moon. And that seemed to work out OK. Since I’m not gonna learn to make change in pesos, I’ll fight these arrogant SOB’s in the schools like they’re doing in Lee County, FL.
Okay, time for new math that some these kids will understand:
Little Johnny sneaks into Mr. Smith’s house late one night. He is 10 steps away from the door when Mr. Smith points his .45 pistol at him. If Mr. Smith’s pistol holds 10 rounds, and Johnny is 10 steps from the door, how many rounds will little Johnny have popped into his ass before he reaches the door?
Answer: One. It’s a fuckin .45 and Mr. Smith is a good shot.
Next question…
I wrote a math question in like 6th Grade about Trench Warfare.
I can’t remember if it was distances between trenches, shell trajectories, or something else.
I also once did a math project about running a business. I decided to “sell” 15mm Flames of War miniature warfare pieces.
By the way, anyone going to Rockcon in October?
Speaking of the ongoing failure that is public education in this country, check out the folks who think ISIS is a worthy cause deserving of support: http://popularmilitary.com/video-college-students-sign-petition-support-isis/
It is sickening how hypocritical some of these people are. If the US is soooooo horrible and all these other countries are sooooo great, then go fuckin’ move there.
Maybe they’ll let you hang around and be a part of the gang like Berghdal (especially on Man Love Thursdays), instead of getting your heads cut off like just happened.
Ummmmm, no. That was a deliberate deception on the part of the website in question. All it proves is that a very large number of college kids don’t follow international events that closely.
Given the way the petition was presented to them, the respondents probably thought they were supporting either anti-Syrian rebels, or local militias in Iraq against terrorists.
Nope, nope, nope.
Every time you try to politicize math, you get poor math.
Easy math.
But poor.
I really wish I could redraw that one guy I drew flipping the finger to Common Core…
You have no idea how much I envy you for having graduating…
Dammit, *graduated*. Maybe I need common core after all.
No, you just need to proofread before you click ‘submit’.
HS Junior – as my dad would say “Don’t let the bastards get you down.”
You don’t need them to be well educated, all the information is out there, you just have to let it in. 🙂
Mark twain said; “I never let school interfere with my education.”. Words to live by.
So will the answer to 2+2 in latest-issue textbooks be ‘privilege’?
The answer (4, in leftist Common-Core) will be the number of genders that Emily associates her liberated self with.
“White Privilege” would be the answer
To be honest, my 2 + 2 never really equaled 4 (four).
Hence my degrees in Social Sciences and the Humanities.
That being said, I CLEP’ed math for school.
Looks like the military was good for something!
Before you jump on that, understand the liberal “enclave” in which I reside.
Keep gators in your moat, bro. Heh.
And a calculator handy.
Math is hard because math is hard anyone blaming other people for math is just making excuses.
Use your math skills…. 9, 9, 9, & 9. Sum you are solving for 100. Good luck. B-)
9 divided by 9 equals 1 plus 99 equals 100?
I like results. I generally don’t care how they’re achieved provided the method is repeatable. If we somehow came up with a method to channel our inner Wile E. Coyote and summon ACME pianos to fall on the heads of senior ISIS leadership, killing them all, I’d be fine with that, even if a double-tap from Delta is more conventional.
If the end result is communities with poor math skills achieving better understanding of mathematics concepts and how to apply them in daily life, then while I may find it strange, I’ll still take it.
If I had one wish, it’d be to have Wile E Coyote’s powers of creation and destruction…
I’ll disagree with you on the not caring how they’re achieved. IMO – The end does not always justify the means, and this curriculum has a much farther reaching agenda….
True, and I just replied about this above, but to me the curriculum is still localized and ‘short’ (in terms of the years in which TFA has kids),… whereas math skills last a life-time. I also feel it’s the more critical thing – let them learn math, and hell, be exposed to some wacky cultural responsive stuff. As they grow up, they’ll move into the real world and see things don’t work that way, but they’ll still have their math skills.
I don’t support the ridiculous curriculum at all, and the example on that page about 2+2 NOT equaling four has absolutely nothing to do with math. I have no idea how the hell Grace Chen is a managing director, and don’t even get me started on the ‘old white men’ thing, since that ignores some pretty amazing non-White, non-male mathematicians. Hell, Maryam Mirzakhani, an Iranian woman, just won the Fields medal, basically a Nobel Prize in math! I’m ranting now, but the point is, there’s always a bit of stupidity in a curriculum. I had teachers who were clueless at times, too. At the end of the day, though, exposure to this stuff for one or two years isn’t the end of the world. It might even swing the pendulum the other way when they see grow up and see how ridiculous it was.
If this were a nationwide curriculum for every school, I’d be much more strongly against it. For now, I roll my eyes… and wait to see the results (and, yes, the costs, too).
Old white man’s domain, eh? Tell that to my brother-in-law’s grandmother. She’s a retired teacher who gives each of her great-grandchildren an hour of age-appropriate homework per day, just as she did with her children and grandchildren. She’s a sweet lady, and I love her like my own grandma, and she knows the value of education and makes damn sure that her progeny get a good one. Sure, she’s a bit liberal-leaning, but nonetheless fair and open-minded, and pretty wise. As a result of her supplemental in-house curriculum, her great-grandson (my nephew) is excelling at 6th-grade-level math…AT THE AGE OF NINE!! He’s also a pretty damn good baseball player. The other kids are similarly advanced.
And here’s the punch line: SHE’S BLACK!!
So don’t give me that race crap. The wonderful old lady I just described will take that Race Card and spank TFA’s collective ass with it.
Sounds like she’s plenty Conservative leaning too. But that’s just what I garner from that paragraph. good example.
Man, screw Teach for America. I may still be just a bit pissed that they withdrew a job offer after finding out I was in the guard… I wish I had gotten that in writing instead of just over the phone.
That is too bad. You’d be rich right now…
Old white men? Guess again, Ms. Grace *Chen*. I’m Asian too. Does she really think people won’t go there?
Allowing the left to infiltrate our educational institutions has been one of the greatest mistakes in the history of our country. I’m not sure how we can go about fighting it now, or if the damage can be undone.
Common Core Algebra Question written by an old white guy:
A small plane takes off with an unknown amount of gas in the tank. It encounters strong head winds and low clouds. It lands and takes off again with 30 min of fuel. How much is a 99 cent app?
A catheter is shoved up the urinary tract far beyond the prostate, while at the same time, a restraining order is filed. No one crosses any tribal lines. How long does the drooling man rock in the corner?
Answer: Until the bushes rustle.
Stay thirsty my friends.
You certainly seem to stay thirsty . . . .
Oh, let’s not blame the TfA peeps. Let’s blame lazy-minded children who don’t want to study simple stuff that will help them get better jobs, jobs that pay serious money.
I stopped at a McD’s on my way to visit my mother, some 20 years ago, and gave the girl at the counter the correct coins ($.52) in change plus a $10 bill. She had already rung up the exact amount as payment before I gave her the cash, and gave me a blank look while I waited for her to give me my change, which was $6.
Blame mental laziness first, and then screw TfA and fight them tooth and nail.
From MSN Money, 10 jobs with median incomes of $51,000, expected to increase a lot between now and 2022:
http://money.msn.com/careers-and-education/10-fastest-growing-occupations-in-the-us
If you’re mentally lazy, you won’t get those jobs. Period.
The Problem is, the people who can’t get those jobs, will be getting funded by the government taking money from those who do have the jobs.
And the people who don’t have to work will be voting for elected officials who continue to let them be lazy and not have to work hard.
More on Math – Morning Edition:
1 can of Mount Dew + 1 egg McSammich + 3 hits from crack pipe + 1 fiancee and child beating = a healthly fortyfived breakfast before court ordered GED classes.
Until football season starts, then Starter making hunnits of millons o’ dollaz…
Badum-Tish!
I’m sure the original premise was to focus on students who need more help with certain subjects. But that was corrupted into this crap.
As a former instructor, I can say that I had quite a few students I had to spend time with on certain things to ensure they understood the subject completely. I had to teach one troop the metric system (how he made it through basic without knowing the metric system….) That’s the most important responsibility of teachers, knowing their students and understanding how to make them learn.
In this case, “the they” are injecting their own personal political objectives into something to effect the school system.
They are using student learning as an excuse, plain and simple.
My Dog can do Calculus and Trig in its head. I know you guys don’t believe me do you?
Ok. I throw a ball, she takes off at a run and figures out where that ball is going to be at a point in time that has not arrived and has taken into account the angle of descent as well as other factors such as wind. 9 times out of ten she gets the ball.
Math is simply a way of showing every day events in a more tangible way.
The reason that Math is seen as the Domain of old White Men is that there is very little money to be made. Its the same problem NASA had when the they wanted black members in the control room. Its not that they are shut out, its that they generally do not want to follow the route of pure science, there is no money it it.
I love the dog bit … Very pithy.
And they wonder why kids can’t pass the Armed Forces entrance exam.
By the way, never been more proud to be an old white man than after reading this. Remember…ah, remember…crap, I forgot. See an old white man in action. 😀
Ah, so 2 + 2 = “Racist”– give me some free stuff for reparations, whitey! (Or something like that.)
I didn’t realize there would be math on the blog today. I am unprepared. I will check my privilege and be back when I am prepared for the exam.
More on Math – Post Work Edition:
MCPO walks into bar and says to tender, “I am in a hurry, I will only have time for 1 beer”.
The bartender yells BULLSHIT at the top of his lungs and exclaims, “you have never had just 1 beer in your life”.
And I was never very good at math either!
Ta Ta!