So, your kid attends Raymond Avenue Elementary, an inner city school primarily of black students.

Your child's young first grade teacher hands out arithmetic problems for homework.

1. Easy E and his friend, M.C. Ren, went to the corner store to buy a pack of Old English Soda Pop. If the Soda cost $3.85 and between the two old friends they had a ten dollar bill, how much change would they
receive.

2. E-40 was concerned with his friend, Too-Short's dental problems so E-40 decided to buy Too Short his missing teeth. If a set of dentures cost 560 dollars, and E-40 has 332 dollars, does E-40 have enough money.
If E-40 does not have enough money, how much more does he need.

3. Ice Cube was looking to shoot his new video from his next album, "I Know I'm Just a Has-Been Studio Gangster," and he had 72 dollars to complete his video. If Ice Cube was using 6 dollar bills to pay his staff
on a daily basis, how many persons does he have working for him. The key is dividing 72 by 6.

4. Mack 10 was driving down the strip in his Cutlass sitting on a brand new set of Daytons listening to his West Side Connection tape when one of his four huge speakers blew out. If one of Mack 10's speakers cost 7 dollars, how much would 4 cost. The key is multiplication.

5. Dodo Stain and Nappy were best friends who each weighed 500 pounds apiece. Everybody at their work said they were fat slobs so they decided to lose some weight, so they could go to the local clubs and "mack" to all the local momies in town. If both men vowed to lose 20 pounds each week, how many pounds would they lose in 3 months? What will be their combined weight after the 3 months?

6. Biggie Little was a rapper who was 2 feet tall and had an ashy forehead. If Biggie needed to grow another 4 feet to be taken serious in the rap game, and there was a doctor who charged 2 dollars an inch, how much money would Biggie Little have to spend to grow the extra 4 feet? There are 12 inches in a foot.

7. Dapper Dan was a man who took great pride in his Tuff Skin polyester suits. He owned 9 of them in all different colors. If Dapper Dan's wife left him because he treated her bad and his feet smelled, and when she
left she took 3 of his Tuff Skin suits, how many does he have left? If each suit cost 15 dollars, how much will it cost to replace the stolen suits?

Unfortunately, the assignment is not a joke. It is real, and was handed out to the children, some of whose parents were not amused.

Easy E? As I recall, the late rapper died of AIDS, having fathered, with different women, several children out of wedlock.

Apart from being age inappropriate, the assignment contains bad grammar. As it happens, the teacher in question is black, as was the parent who protested the loudest.
Question: Suppose a white teacher handed out this assignment in a predominantly white suburban school district?

Can you say, "Excuse me, Principal Jones. There's a Reverend Jackson on the phone--and he sounds quite upset."

God Bless America...(for letting it go to shit)

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You're in a laundry room, You're in a laundry room, the clue just came to you?, oh.

Easy E is cool.

The grammar looks fine. The teacher put "mack" in quotes to show that it's slang. What are you talking about?

As far as the examples, you're leaving out some crucial information. What kind of place was this school in? Rundown inner-city areas, a suburban neighborhood with a high percentage of black kids (yes, they do exist, oh my), etc.? I'd wager that the teacher was smart enough to realize that his/her students were going to pay attention to Ice Cube and Easy E a lot more than Billy and Susie.

If a kid learns that 9+2=11 because the teacher got him to pay attention by saying, "If you took all the members of the Wu-Tang Clan and added them into a group with Run DMC, how many rappers would be in the group?", when all he would have done otherwise is sleep in class, more power to that teacher.

In the first sentence, "So, your kid attends Raymond Avenue Elementary, an inner city school primarily of black students."

Heh.

Damn Spiffy, I'll bet you prefer "whole language" to Phonics, huh?

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You're in a laundry room, You're in a laundry room, the clue just came to you?, oh.

you know in a perfect world spiffy i would agree,

however, we live in a world of jackasses, and i can guarantee there will be at least one person who raises a fit about it to the schoolboard because of the lyrical content of rap music with ho's and chronic, and say the school is promoting this sort of behavior in our youth.

billy and suzie and dick and jane are used because they are very neutral, you can't offend someone, you can't exclude someone, there are no political or society implications involved with the names.

schools have probably the hardest job in the world, you can't just provide an environment to learn, you have to provide and environment that satisfies the parents, is as safe as possible(you know the jackass who couldn't ride his bike, fell over on the school's property and broke his leg where the school was sued for negligence and now no child can ride their bike except on designated routes to the place where you lock them to the bike stands).

and lokil is right if it was a white teacher, a black parent would've sued for racial profiling.

all things that should make sense don't when it comes to schools, mainly because they have the only job in the world where the satisfaction of all involved is required, and a main reason why they are so fucked up because you can't please all of the people all of the time.

[This message has been edited by lostmind (edited 01-31-2001).]

People can be offended by anything. When I was in kindergarden (don't ask why I remember this) I found it very offensive when someone called a hot dog a weiner.
The point is, you either have to be very immiture or a very big asshole to be offended by little things.

Whoops, I missed that about the school. *babbles* My bad.

I know it's not a perfect world, lostmind, but it's just my feeling that if someone is going to bitch if you deviate from the standard, no matter how you do it, you might as well do it in the most effective way you can. In this case, I think the teacher probably did that.

This is how you propose it? Deviation from the norm, will always been shunned.

Don't keep them down, Spiffy. They deserve to be taught on the same standards and guidelines as everyone else if we truly want equality.

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You're in a laundry room, You're in a laundry room, the clue just came to you?, oh.

I DON'T WANT EQUALITY.

we are not all equal, if we were i would make as much as michael jordan.

but then i'd be able to play as well as him if we were all equal.

the constitution says "we are 'CREATED' equal".

this means that at birth we have the same chances as anybody else, it's what we do with the opportunities that determines whether we live in a mansion or a trailer.

i'm sick of all this talk about equality.

anybody seen "pleasantville", a very powerful message from a pretty corny movie.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AND MY SANITY, I DON'T WANT TO LIVE IN PLEASANTVILLE.

Why are things shunned?

Fear.

Fear is not a good thing. When deviation from the norm is used to achieve good ends, and doesn't do anything evil in the process, how can it be bad?

I'm not the one keeping anybody down.

Fear is the only thing that keeps us from doing most things. That can be a good thing or a bad thing. Fear keeps the average person from killing the president, although it would be no great loss with Bush. Fear also keeps us (guys) from aproaching a girl that we like. Fear is good in moderation, as with everything else. Too much and you will suffer.

Why would the loss of our President be bad Prometheus?

I'm waiting for your answer so I can tear it apart.

Spiffy: Deviations from the norm will be shunned because of that fact. It isn't that norm. Sorry, dood. It's natural, I'm afraid it's above you...

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You're in a laundry room, You're in a laundry room, the clue just came to you?, oh.

[This message has been edited by Lokil (edited 02-02-2001).]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lokil:
Spiffy: Deviations from the norm will be shunned because of that fact. It isn't that norm. Sorry, dood. It's natural, I'm afraid it's above you...

---

You're absolutely right. It's a natural human reaction to be afraid of what's different, and to avoid it, hate it, shun it, all the nasty things that grow from fear. Think about that... natural.. inborn.. part of us from the start.. part of our basic human nature, not something that would afflict a person who has grown and learned that there's no reason to be afraid.

Who's being primitive now?

Spiffy,

Your SOOOOO much evolved than the rest of us...Please go revel in that fact in your treehouse.

LATE

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You're in a laundry room, You're in a laundry room, the clue just came to you?, oh.

Equality is not necessarily the absence of creativity.

"Main Entry: 1equal
Pronunciation: 'E-kw&l
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English, from Latin aequalis, from aequus level, equal
Date: 14th century
1 a (1) : of the same measure, quantity, amount, or number as another (2) : identical in mathematical value or logical denotation : EQUIVALENT b : like in quality, nature, or status c : like for each member of a group, class, or society <provide equal employment opportunities>
2 : regarding or affecting all objects in the same way : IMPARTIAL
3 : free from extremes: as a : tranquil in mind or mood b : not showing variation in appearance, structure, or proportion
4 a : capable of meeting the requirements of a situation or a task b : SUITABLE <bored with work not equal to his abilities>"
(http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary)

Note especially these parts:

"b : like in quality, nature, or status c : like for each member of a group, class, or society "

and

"3 : free from extremes: as...b : not showing variation in appearance, structure, or proportion"

Equality is right as long as it does not demolish creativity. In the United States there is not economic equality. There is no reason that one person should be born with more money than another if, in fact, all people are created equal. This equality should apply internationally as well. If people were really equal this way, there is no reason that we would live in a "pleasantville" because like i said before being equal does not necessarily mean there is no creativity.

I kinda have an example of what I am trying to say. Okay say in this so called economically equal society every person has like $10 (for simplicity's sake). Now my specialty may be making basketball shoes. Its what I like, its what I am doing for a living. Your specialty is playing basketball. You get the same wages but we are both doing what we want to be doing. You can invent whatever new fancy b-ball moves you want and I can invent new shoe stylez. There is still creativity, but everyone is "equal."


Now if only someone would naturally want to be a trash man in this society....

SHIT MAN, i thought my posts required concentration, fuck man, okay, i went to alot of different schools, from geelong grammar(where prince charles of pommy land with the wing nuts went) to home schooled(screw you guys)to public, different private, and you know what man, its all a fucken joke, subjugation, different class, no equal shit, the rich.public schooled are designed to become janitor's, well what are the odd's, and private maintain the business for the elite , its all generic system, which is why the classes clash, there was no difference in the schooling method of the most expensive school in australia(geelong grammar, i got kicked out for hiring a blow up doll to the seniors) to the public school system, its the name on the application, subjugation like the church and greed, to herd the masses for control. i have lived it, and now i destroy it.

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totally nihilistic

I dunno, my sister went to a public high school as opposed to me and she had A LOT more activities to choose from. I was so bored.

I'm still smarter than her. Heh.

human nature? What's human nature? We evolve. A primal human isn't human nature anymore. Stick some human in nature now and you have someone who is lost, or a forest ranger.
I got this far and forgot what my point was...oh well.

person101;

we are all born with the same amount of money.

none.

if you're saying though that some jackass who failed kindergarten and never went back should make as much money as a guy who busted his ass his whole life to better himself and those around him; i say.

BULLSHIT.

nobody would go to school; there'd be no reason to.

nobody would take initiative to invent new things.

there'd be no reason to.

we are all CREATED equal; it's what we do after that that seperates us from the haves and have nots.

So you are saying that if one kid were born to bill gates and if another kid were born to some dude livin in a van down by the river they would be equal--they would have equal opportunities in life?

idiot101,

Equal treatment under thw law.

I don't believe lostmind is suggesting anything of the sort. In fact, those two people would NOT have the same opportunities. Who would have the better opportunities? It's easy to say Gates' kid, but in reality, it depends on the person. If that kid born by the river works harder, just because his family had nothing to start with doesn't mean he'll wind up with less opportunity.

The thing that gives Gates' kid the advantage is that he pretty much doesn't need opportunity unless daddy makes him work..

thanks spiffy.

and if the kid with the father in the van doesn't want to do shit because like his father believes that society owes him something just because he decided to grace us with his presence.

well; that kid can live in the same van when he gets older.

if the kid born to bill gates doesn't want to do shit with his life he can sell the company and live off of that.

THE WORLD OR THE PEOPLE IN IT DON'T OWE YOU ANYTHING.

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO TO GET THE THINGS YOU WANT.

sorry for leaving you out lokil.

thank you as well.