A few days ago, a comment by ‘chip’ to this topic on SDA contained the following:
The state of public education in BC is very poor compared to what we have experienced in Asia. And now that UBC has initiated its new teacher training program that will bring the issues of social justice into math and science classes one can expect it will get a lot worse before it gets better.
One has to wonder if the “brain trust” behind the B.C. education system might soon be emulating this example set in Georgia:
Update: Courtesy of ‘rita’, here are some instruction manuals for “educators” who wish to breathe new life into the class warfare fires and amp up animosity & distrust between the races. Bravo, Leftie Social Engineers, you’re doing such “good” for society! 🙁
Is it just me or does this represent some sign that we still have hope?
The NAACP must be shocked….shocked….
I am gratified that it was 2 obvious black guys who blew a fuse about this and firmly delivered a Whiskey Tango Foxtrot message to the school board…….
I deem it as the correct reaction.
I subscibe to the tack that Morgan Freeman expessed, prior to his head injury.
“If you want to get rid of racism…just stop talking about it!”
So WTF is “social justice” in math???? 1+1=2 is racist because the integers 0 and anything above 2 are not mentioned? Does this hurt their esteem?? So we should say 1+1=2 or maybe 154 just so 154 feels good??? Oh wait.
And in the sciences? Gawd. We see what happens when political justice is introduced to climatology. What will “social” justice do their.(I can see the headline now…This peer-reviewed paper is racist/biased because we couldn’t find more than 3 blacks who know who Einstien is,let alone his theories?
In a previous thread, and in response to a question of mine, nick provided this link: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Teaching+Science+for+Social+Justice&x=0&y=0#/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_27?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=teaching+for+social+justice+series&sprefix=Teaching+for+Social+Justice&rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3Ateaching+for+social+justice+series
(Whew. I didn’t realize it was so long.) It takes you to an Amazon site listing many books all on the subject of “teaching and social justice.” This is definitely social engineering and brainwashing at its finest, and it bothers me profoundly that it’s making its way into the educational system.
The questions in the assignment discussed in the clip are clumsy, obvious and insulting on so many levels. I recall that similar patronizing stuff found its way in our curricula in order to provide aboriginal content. (Instead of Suzie following a recipe to make a cake, Little Feather was making pemmican.) No-one, and especially not the native kids, was in the least impressed by such transparent and condescending gestures.
Such idiocies should be ripped out by the roots but they continue to emerge. Along with deploring the fact that there are too many reporters, we should also deplore the fact that there are too many half-baked researchers who well know how to cadge grants and publish studies, and who never miss an opportunity to attempt to indoctrinate the young into proper ways to think.
Social justice means get whitey off the planet.
Kudos to those two black dads, who see the folly in this sort of race baiting by idiot teachers.
That Georgia administrator, Sloan Roach is clearly too dumb to have anything to do with teaching children.
The ONLY acceptable outcome to this level of stupidity is for all of the so-called “educators” to be dismissed without references immediately.
Hey Rita,
Try using this when you want to share a URL.
http://tinyurl.com
Sending kids off to school for an education designed and delivered by bureaucrats and union monopolists… what could possibly go wrong?
Considering the importance of education, tax resources consumed, and quality of the product delivered; the modern, western mis-education system may be the worst socialist/statist institution we have.
Rita @ 2:56:
Thanks to Antonio Gramsci, Alinsky, Ayers, and etc., the school and university curricula have long been corrupted by politics. What’s new about the series of books you link to is that “social Justice” has lately invaded the science curricula. UBC school of “education” has explicitly endorsed this corruption of the sciences.
PS: you might try this method of embedding a link Type:
This is why I pay thousands of dollars per year for private school for my kids.
The teachers were trying to incorporate history into math class in an attempt to do a cross curricular activity. It was a pretty poor attempt. The principal is collecting the assignments and shredding them so they will not get used again in the future.
How about some Canadian content, eh?
If a 12 foot rope is needed for a hangin’, and you have twenty pieces of rope that are each 3 feet long, how many pieces of rope do you need to hang Louis Riel if 6 inches of each piece is used up for a splice?
Make a difference by lobbying for school vouchers.
How about a curriculum that talks about inter-generational economic justice:
A teachers income averages $70,000 per year. Their pension is guaranteed, based on 80% their best three years of service and is fully indexed. They retire at age sixty and start collecting both CPP and pension. They live 25 years with an average pension increase of 3% and a CPP of $12000.
a)Why are defined benefit plans in the public sector and pay-as-you-go government pension plans an unfair redistribution of taxpayer money from younger, poorer workers to older wealthier citizens.
c)If the worker to retiree ratio continues to deteriorate, what are the possible economic outcomes?
b)What 3 strategies could you use to change this injustice?
OOps @ 4:02:
That advice re: html links should read:
OOps, again, at 4:28. Sorry.
Try this: go to this site, scroll down, look for “anchor”; follow that formula for inserting an anchored hyperlink.
In classical Greece, where slaves were everyday business, it is doubtful that they would teach in school such idiocy as this.
It is quite possible, from literature of the time, that they treated slaves better than the socialist teachers in Georgia treat their students. How can anyone come up with stupidity that this is.
The incident is beyond belief, though it is indicative of socialist thought of US teachers union, of today.
The paper pusher from the district could not, would not, absolutely not, call this to be patently racist, although this is beyond racist. This is advanced stage of social engineering that has its head stuck up its ass.
UBC and UVic will continue to attract talented oriental students in computer science, engineering, health science etc (ie the real degrees worth having), dumb wimmin will be attracted to “education” and dodge through with a miniscule amount of maths, and a maximum of psychology and social “sciences”.
Note how they are trying to give these courses a veneer of respectability by adding science and engineering after social, I would like to see the justification of calling something a science without critical analysis and application of logic.
Just make sure that your kids do not go through the public school system that is infested with UBC education drones.
In Alberta, textbooks are not chosen by, their accuracy, there value as teaching tools, their understandability by students and teachers, or even by cost. Our textbooks are chosen based on a scoring system of how many pictures and stories are about natives, visible minorities, females, and those who have a homosexual orientation. We have become so inclusive that we have excluded education as a criteria for selecting educational materials. The professionals will tell us that this has nothing to do with our declining educational outcomes.
The fact that the race of the teachers was not mentioned in the news clip suggests to me that they are not white. That would have been too juicy an item to not mention. So are they ex-Black Panthers trying to instill racial hatred in their students? Whatever the case they should be sacked.
1983 our high school French teacher mentioned that he had to use ‘gender balanced’ lessons. Half the time the boss would be a woman with men as her underlings, the Prime Minister or police officer was a woman etc. This was at the command of the Ontario Ministry of Education.
The social engineers in Ontario started out small, now they’re going for the gold and trying to raise an entire generation of non-judgemental, enviro-mentalist socialists who will vote NDP.
How dare they consider a 91 degree angle “obtuse!” That’s de-anglicizing.
Who is it to say that the square root of negative one is “imaginary”.
It is numberist to declare some numbers as “odd” and others as “prime” or “perfect.” All numbers are created equal.
I’m just speaking truth to exponents.
Thanks Abe Froman 3:33 pm, and nick (various, heh). I appreciate the help. (Bookmarked for future reference.)
I originally followed a link (in the shorter format) given to me by nick. (Tried to give you credit earlier.)
Quite frankly, I was shocked at the extent of the list and the fact that they would embed that philosophy in every subject area–essentially corrupting everything.
Thanks Abe Froman 3:33 pm, and nick. I appreciate the help. (Bookmarked for future reference.)
I originally followed a link (in the shorter format) given to me by nick. (Tried to give you credit earlier.)
Quite frankly, I was shocked at the extent of the list and the fact that they would embed that philosophy in every subject area–essentially corrupting everything.
Doesn’t that racist math homework have to be gayer, by law in California?
First seen this at BCF, I believe. Dennis Prager on “social justice”.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=207_1322514298
Gwinnett County GA teachers can do stupid social justice plus math for lower salary and benefits than Canadian teachers! Canada could outsource! plus no incredibly powerful teacher’s union.
salary link
http://www.gwinnett.k12.ga.us/careers%5Ccareershr.nsf/0913159815F4C0FE8525744B005995E5/$file/Teacher_Salary_Schedule_FY2012.pdf
I’m starting a private charter school oriented toward free markets and limited government.
My researchers are working on the manual for math teaching. One of the questions might be too hard, so I thought I’d throw it out here (with Kate’s forbearance) just to see how sda-ites do with it:
A public sector worker makes $75,000 per year and pays $15,000 in income taxes.
(a) What would this person’s pay likely be in the private sector?
(b) How much income tax does this public sector employee really pay.
This is not news–the “social justice” stuff has been in the classrooms for years. Most teachers are poorly read and easily led–after all, they exist in the burbs and rarely interact with the real world. Pay more attention to what’s going in your kids’ schools–the curriculum, the support materials and the teachers will not change unless there is significant pressure from the parents.
“social injustice ” is idiot speak for ‘um….’
Even more lib-left compassion on display,at Wonkette blog..you have got to read the filth to believe it!
see: wonkette.com/443167/why-he
Bad but not as bad as what the BCTF is trying jam down the throats of our kids. Just can’t show this often enough.
http://blazingcatfur.blogspot.com/2011/12/gender-free-children-newest-fad-in.html#disqus_thread
Al_in_Ottawa
“1983 our high school French teacher mentioned that he had to use ‘gender balanced’ lessons”
In true Canadian fashion we take gender out of the English language but not the French. Gendered terms are integral to both languages but apparently English can do without.
Of course the teachers weren’t white!
Their mug shots would have been all over the news on their way to the gallows.
*I’m just curious as to how many slaves does it take to pick eight apples and load a cart with 200lb bales of hay in an hour. What the math questions fail to do is define where the slaves originated or their sex, I believe gender and tribal affiliations made big productive differences back in the day.
“Two “slaves” vacume 500 room each. One slave gets two beatings and the other three.
What’ is the ratio of rooms vacumed per beating for each slave ?
Show your work.”
So far no confirmed proof that the question above was removed just before social justice math text went to print, in Mississauga.
How many years did it take before someone who might actually be offended, actually read the text?
I feel that the question of whether these slaves were, gay, straigt or transgendered needs to be addressed. These beatings may have been examples of cisphobic bullying.
With a grandson in grade 1 this year and a long standing interest in education issues, I took it upon myself to send an e-mail to not only friends who might be interested, but to our school superintendent and all school board trustees.
The e-mail had screen captures showing an example of the absurd ‘new math’ method as compared with the much more efficient ‘traditional method’ of binary multiplication. I pointed out that the ‘new methods’ had no more efficacy or reason than the open concept classroom of the 1970’s. Both are/were education theory flavours of the day and both are severly damaging to student learning outcomes.
I also sent screen captures and links to the Georgia video of “how many slaves” as well as a capture of all the ‘Social Justice’ books in the Amazon Library – particularly pointing out that the “Science for Social Justice” tome is a product of Bill Ayers.
Hopefully it may stir discussion within our newly elected school board.
“If you want to get rid of racism…just stop talking about it!”
The left doesn’t really care about getting rid of racism. What it really wants to do is recruit minorities and “victims” as a substitute working class for the purpose of overthrowing capitalism, as per the Frankfurt School. It thinks socialism will magically appear like a butterfly out of a cocoon. That’s why the left harps on discrimination so much: it wants to encourage any minority who is emotionally unstable to believe that his problems are due to racism in society rather than whatever biochemical imbalance in own brain.
As for BC, it turned its curriculum over to an extreme left-wing gay couple (named Corren, as I recall) for vetting some years back. The results were appalling.
I agree that vouchers are an absolutely essential first step for education reform.
Amazing how times have changed as the arithmetic problems we got in elementary school were simple, unadorned questions such as: 72/9 = ?
Then there were the algebraic word problems such as two trains 20 miles apart traveling at 50 mph are approaching one another and an airplane flying at 200 mph flies between the two trains. Assuming that the airplane can turn instantaneously, how many miles does the airplane fly between the trains before they pass one another?
I doubt that a majority of current high school graduates could solve the second problem, even given their supercomputer on a chip laptops which they have no idea how to program a simulation of the problem on. We used to do problems like that in our heads.
Dumbing down the population appears to be the primary goal of the “social justice” movement. People that can’t figure out simple things for themselves are ideal subjects for statist bureaucrats to control. The thing statists are most fearful of are people who think for themselves and are self-reliant.
And people wonder why today’s public school kids can’t add, read or spell. Or find their own country on a map.
It used to amuse me when I was told that the way to engage students in math was to edit the word problems to make them more “relevant”. Mostly that meant that girl names and boys names should be used with equal frequency, and that you should sprinkle in the odd Jose and Juanita, Mohammed and Fatima, Gaston and Emilienne. And girls should be the doctors and boys the home-makers. Stuff like that. There were still trains going in different directions, and red, blue and white marbles in the sock.
I once raised the usual level of interest, when I drew a story problem involving Bessie the Robo-Cow annihilating the cattle-rustling Gatlin Boys with her laser horns and devised some trig questions on that scenario. (There was one other occasion when I circumcized a square–but we’ll let that one pass.)
Apart from those high moments, my career was rather ordinary.
Marxist’s propaganda tarted up as educational material, at least they’re not hiding their communist’s ethos anymore.
Scar – I noted the same thing in college about 20 years ago, and went on to note that replacing the word “man” with “person” didn’t work either, because “per” was Latin for “through” or “by means of”, and “son”, of course, was a male offspring. So person had to be written as peroffspring to be non-sexist. I was able to cram a peroffspring-datory and a peroffspring-age (mandatory and manage, respectively) into the final sentence of a letter to the editor. It was ignored, of course. “The Enlightened” don’t like to be mocked, or to be shown the inevitable results of their ideas.
RoboCow – that’s awesome, Rita!
RoboCow’s udder could have a rotating 50mm gun.
Shmoopy, that’s brilliant. I never thought of that. She had enough fire power in her laser horn to blow up the Gatlin boys and their pickup truck–and also, enough accuracy not to hurt the cows that were already loaded up in the box. But extra fire power never hurts. When the students responded (mostly correctly) with story cartoons of their own (body parts of the Gatlins flying through the air (very un-PC) along with diagrams and calculations, I thought it had been a success. And when I asked them to create Bessie the RoboCow problems of their own, they were quite inventive and showed they “got” the trig part of the lesson. I owed some of the idea to Gary Larson who was brilliant in his cow cartoons–though he never did come up with Robo-Cow.
: LC Bennett at January 7, 2012 4:22 PM Excellent Question, LC Bennett.
Both the holocaust industry and the slavery industry are waaaaaaaaay too profitable to ever let go.
The UBC (Vancouver) Faculty of Education recently hired a new Dean. You can expect a lot more of this sort of thing in the future.
C_miner, seems our minds work the same way. My solution to the sexist “person” term was to replace it with persibling. Now we have more options of how to create politically correct documents and can break the monotony of what will likely be a very soporiphic document by randomly using “peroffspring” or “persibling”.
Wow, and this was in Georgia. Seems some of those Counties have not left the Confederate Union yet.
,