ATLANTA, Jan. 18 (UPI) -- Parents at a metro-Atlanta school that is 88 percent non-white say they were shocked when they discovered slave beatings were used to teach third graders math.
Third-grade mom Plechette Walker said she was so surprised by the story problems that she showed up at Beaver Ridge Elementary to ask what was going on, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Wednesday.
"You have Africans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, blacks and whites [attending the school]," she said. "You would think that in dealing with issues of race they would be very, very sensitive."
Christopher Braxton said he was helping his son Nicholas with homework when he stumbled across a math problem that read: If Frederick got two beatings per day, how many beatings did he get in one week?"
Braxton said his son wanted to know what a slave was and why he was getting beaten.
County school officials said the assignment was a clumsy way to tie a history lesson to math computation.
Ironically, half the staff at Beaver Ridge Elementary School is non-white, the newspaper said.
Education consultant Jane Elliott said even multicultural staffs can display cultural "ignorance."
"I've heard of some teachers doing slave auctions during Black History Month," she said.
