Alabama Teacher Suspended for Creativity and Turning a Math quiz into an Episode of The Wire

a blog by La Kifo

An Alabama 8th grade teacher found herself in some trouble when she tried to mix her personal life and work. The teacher distributed a math quiz using examples containing gang life references. 

NBC:
A teacher at an Alabama middle school has been placed on administrative leave after it was discovered she distributed a questionable math quiz last Friday to her students that referenced gang-related activities like drive-by shootings, cocaine and prostitution.

According to parents of kids at Cranford Burns Middle School in Mobile, the students were shocked after reading questions like these:

"Tyrone knocked up 4 girls in the gang. There are 20 girls in his gang. What is the exact percentage of girls Tyrone knocked up?"

"Pedro got 6 years for murder. He also got $10,000 for the hit. If his common-law wife spends $100 of his hit money per month, how much money will be left when he gets out?"

Dwayne pimps 3 ho's. If the price is $85 per trick, how many tricks per day must each ho turn to support Dwayne's $800 per day crack habit?

Parent Erica Hall told NBC affiliate WPMI that she was outraged to find out that longtime Language Arts teacher JoAnne Bolser would hand such inappropriate content out to her son's eighth grade class.

"My son, he took a picture of it in class and he texted it to me. I couldn't believe it," Hall said.

I don't see the problem here. To me, looks like Ms. Bolser is just using practical real world applications of math. She was including examples of instances that are very common. Also, all of those question could be very helpful for some of these kids. Not every kid is going to make it into college. Some of them will have to live the street life. By not censoring this teacher, the school is just hurting its own students.

What is going to happen when lil Bill impregnants 3 out of 15 hoes in his gang? How will he know how much child support he needs to pay out each month? 

How about when Jimmy's inciatation comes around and they ask him to kill 5 rival gang members with a pistol they give him? How is he going to know how to ration those bullets so that he can kill all 5 without having to reload?

This teacher is doing these students a service, she's not simply pandering to all the smart rich children. She's putting out a lesson that can be absorbed by all students of her class. I think everyone knows, they don't give stripes out to people who can't solve compounded fractions.