January 2012 – The headline, ‘If Fred Got Two Beatings Per Day…’ Homework Asks, immediately drew my attention as soon as I opened my web browser.  Of course, it would.  Why would any homework assignment have a question like that?

According to ABC News, third graders at Beaver Ridge Elementary School in Gwinnett County, GA received math homework with questions about slavery.

There were questions about slaves picking oranges, slaves receiving beatings and slaves picking cotton.

Parents are outraged.  Is that any surprise?  They well should be.  One parent points out that these questions show there are still racists.  Another parent stated they now have to explain to their 8-year-old why math problems were written about slaves and slavery.

The district claims the teachers were only attempting a cross-curricular activity by incorporating social studies into math problems.

There, folks, lies the problem.  This was merely a very poor attempt at cross-curricular instruction, not a show of racism’s ugly head.

Cross-curricular instruction is one of those recurring educational buzz phrases that teachers are often required to apply to their instruction.  Cross-curricular teaching is not a bad idea when done correctly.  In fact, years of research show that it helps students learn to apply skills taught in one class to subjects in other classes.  It is called “transference”.  Transference is the ability to take a skill learned at school, such as “measurement”, and then apply it to a real-world task like finding out how long the coach in their living room is.  It gives the students a knowledge base, which is important for making learning more meaningful and making that knowledge stick.

Cross-curricular instruction has also been shown to increase motivation and improve learning.  When skills are taught in isolation, students rarely see the value in learning those skills.  However, if those skills can be applied to more than one situation, not only are those skills mastered by the student, but also effective learning occurs and those skills are not forgotten.

Teachers may receive textbooks or materials that have some cross-curricular activities, but often these activities never fit in with what teachers in different areas are being required to teach at that particular time frame.  This leaves the teacher no choice but to come up with his or her own material, especially if their administrator or district office is requiring it.

However, that doesn’t excuse the slavery math questions, nor am I condoning the teachers’ decision to create and use them.  Any adult, teacher or not, should have been able to determine that these questions were inappropriate for students, no matter their age.  This appears to be a simple case of changing the words in a preexisting math worksheet, not a true effort at cross-curricular instruction at all.

(Originally published on Yahoo Voices)