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Sarah Frey April 1, 2012 Georgia parents upset over new case of math homework referencing slavery At James A. Jackson Elementary School in Jonesboro, Georgia, a teacher gave out a math assignment for the students to complete at home. The topic of the assignment was about slavery and upset students and parents of the school. The media and public were in shock to how some schools allow the subject of slavery to be used outside of history classes. At Beaver Ridge Elementary School, in Norcross, Georgia, another math assignment was given to students that related to slavery. Christopher Jackson has a nine year old son that received math homework that had a question asking about how many slaves a plantation owner owned. Jackson’s son did not want to answer the question. One teacher resigned from their job because of the controversy from the story and attention from the population. The subject of slavery is a major topic in American history. During the colonial days, African natives were brought to the southern states to work as slaves on numerous plantations. The famous general of the revolutionary war and first president in 1776, George Washington, had slaves to maintain his Mount Vernon plantation in Virginia. Slaves were essential to grow cotton and tobacco crops on the plantations. During the civil war era, the issue of slavery divided the United States with the Civil War between the North and South. President Lincoln declared the emancipation of slavery and the southern states succeeded from the union. The Civil War had battles from Gettysburg to Atlanta and greatly changed American history. During the Civil Rights movements in the 1960’s, in many ways the subject of slavery was one of the root issues of the race relations that were promoted by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The issue was that all races, blacks and whites, need to treat each other as equals with respect, and that the two centuries of injustices from slavery need to be overcome. So why is this third grade math problem about slavery causing a news controversy today? The math problem shows that slavery is still an underlying subject in American history. Jonesboro, Georgia, located twelve miles south of Atlanta, is in the southern area of the country where there were slave plantations. Looking at the Jackson Elementary Website, the demographics has 599 (71%) African Americans, 84 (11%) Hispanics, 34 (4%) Asians, and 20 (2.6%) Whites. This elementary school is predominantly African American. While the colonial colonies were populated by European immigrants, history shows that this large African American population was a result of slavery. The teacher who assigned the math problem was also African American. However, the parents and media coverage say the subject of slavery in 2012 is too emotionally upsetting to use in an elementary math class. Slavery would be better to be taught in history classes, not used arbitrarily in a math class percentage calculation. Work Cited "Georgia Parents Upset over New Case of Math Homework Referencing Slavery." //Fox News//. FOX News Network, 20 Mar. 2012. Web. 01 Apr. 2012. "James Jackson Elementary School." In Jonesboro, GA 30236. Local School Directory, 2005- 2012. Web. 01 Apr. 2012.
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 * 1) If the teacher was white and used this slavery math question, would the controversy have caused this teacher to resign?
 * 2) If the math question was more factual than just hypothetical, would it have still caused dispute?
 * 3) Regarding economic transformation, this third grade math question emphasizes the cultural diversity issue in society. Would it also be inappropriate for a math problem to describe another situation from a different ethnic group?