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- Go to Math Tests for the Young and Projected Infamous---This is for real
terpgirl
It coul only happen in America.
posted by
Limey
on June 3, 2005 at 3:44 PM
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LE
I don't do PC well either. We had pages of Polish jokes in our home every week, taped to a wall. My dad learned to speak English only when he went to school. I'm not terrible sensitive on most things.
The problem I have is that the teacher wasn't doing it as a point, according to what he said. He thought the test was legitimate, not necessarily a parody. If he can't discern the difference, he probably shouldn't have used it. I wouldn't fire the guy either. I just wish he wouldn't have done it.
You're saying the kids would think it was funny, and most kids would. First, the girl I mentioned in this piece said absolutely nothing about it being funny. Nothing. She basically thought nothing of it one way or another. So if it was an attempt to educate with humor, it missed the mark. That was one of the points I was trying to make. It was a witty attempt to step into this other world adults aren't in. Since the girl was neither here nor there with it, it missed the mark. Then it was just a test that they didn't object to. Second, kids and grownups alike giggle in funeral homes and at the most inappropriate times. It's a response to being uncomfortable.
No child is going to say in the middle of a classroom, "Why?" in regard to a test like that in 6th grade. Children don't want to stick out. So, you may think it's funny---and I may even think it's funny (I throw stuff out as a what if, regardless of what I think of it, btw)---but the person it was directed to (to learn from) may be thrown by it. Then it loses its effectiveness.
posted by
terpgirl30
on May 31, 2005 at 11:13 AM
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Well, I don't have a problem with it either.
Each to his own. One man's meat is another man's poison.
posted by
Wordwizard
on May 31, 2005 at 10:02 AM
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Mary_x:
"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder". So is humour, especially parody and irony. Kids, from my own experience, will, like the girl in Terp's post, take the questions as humorous, until someone in authority points out that they might be racist or demeaning to some minority group.
posted by
L.E.Gant
on May 30, 2005 at 10:24 PM
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LE Gant,
I'm not offering to speak for Terpgirl, but regarding my own comment, I'm no big fan of PC myself and I think it's often taken to ridiculous extremes, but, without knowing all the details about the teacher and his relationship to his kids, I still stand by my comment. Meaning, that for an "outsider" to a group, or even an "insider" to a group, like ethnic, to make derogatory comments (with a kind of a wink and a nudge) whether the "insider" of the group might agree or be amused or not, it still sets a really bad tone.
posted by
Blanche.
on May 30, 2005 at 8:35 PM
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Lighten up, terpgirl! It might not appeal to your sense of humour, but the questions are funny. Most 12-year-olds would laugh at them. Or at least they would have 30-odd years ago (about the time the teacher was 12 years old). The idea of asking ridiculous questions goes back a lot further than that,of course - the first one I saw was in the 1950's, when I was nine or ten - and our teacher was one of the best in the school. Later, I found that the idea of that kind of joke was in use by Aristotle (in greek!) and proabably Plato or Socrates.
What's with this P.C. crap, that something which is intended as humour (parody) gets taken to the point where people have to offer to resign, because someone (outside the age groupit was intended to humour) figures that psychologists and other pseudo-scientists think that it would be bad for some minority groups and their self-images?
posted by
L.E.Gant
on May 30, 2005 at 8:23 PM
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Terpgirl,
I can't see anything postive coming out of giving a test like that. If it was a white teacher (I assume he was) giving the test to an ethnically mixed group of kids, he's only going to foster an even greater sense of racial inequity (look, the white guy is mocking us). Whether the girl in his class said she didn't have a problem with it, or not, she could just have adapted to the toxicity of the environment (like the famous frog-boiling experiment).
If he's of another ethnicity, he's still validating the prejudices and stereotypes. If his real intent was to make the kids think about the real costs involved in crime, then his approach was still all wrong.
posted by
Blanche.
on May 30, 2005 at 7:17 PM
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Limey
It is odd. We do it the formal way under arithmetic, figuring it covers *all* maths, I suppose. Then we just tend to shorten it when we speak everyday language.
I've been following your list of all the different things. Some of the stuff, you can figure out why the name adapted. In other cases, I just shake my head and wonder how we came up on either name.
Kim
posted by
terpgirl30
on May 30, 2005 at 4:13 PM
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terpgirl
I've produced a few posts on the differences between British and American English. (In fact I've just done one). But I've never included the fact that we say maths and you say math. Odd, don't you think?
posted by
Limey
on May 30, 2005 at 3:32 PM
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Baltimore???
Isn't that up near the Artic circle? If I go any further north than Palm Beach I start getting the heebie-jeebies.
posted by
mark2556
on May 30, 2005 at 6:39 AM
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Rufus can be found
on any street in Baltimore City. (Now I'll get a call from the mayor.)
I should have known I was setting myself up with that one!
posted by
terpgirl30
on May 30, 2005 at 6:31 AM
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Wow. That would be funny if the kids were old enough to take it as a joke ... but as a test in school, I suppose it would have to be used as an example in an ethics lesson and that the contents of the parody math quiz would have to be made to look as ludicrous as the choice of life-style. But in Junior High, the kids might not have enough life-experience to differentiate between healthy and not healthy.
posted by
TARZANA
on May 30, 2005 at 6:29 AM
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Your post raises an important question ~
Where can I find Rufus? $65 is pretty inexpensive, and I'm on a budget.
posted by
mark2556
on May 30, 2005 at 6:22 AM
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