Text from word problems grade 4; Singapore Math. Aren't they suppose to support better cultural ideas than mimic harmful topics of poor literature and videogames???? Or it is just me - and I am a stone age old lady expecting better that this?? 1 When my granny was trekking across a desert, a troll waylaid her. She killed the troll with her sharp tongue and left. Soon some vultures and hyenas gathered around the dead troll and began to tear apart the carcass. There were 4 times as many vultures as hyenas at first. However, when a terrible sandstorm began to blow, 24 hyenas fled with thier tails between their legs. After that, there were 12 times as many vultures as hyenas left squabbing over the carcass. How many vultures than hyenas were there at first? 2. My pimpy sisiter squeezed out all the pus from her pimples and made 358 tiny pus cakes with it. She gave the cakes to her math teacher and English teacher on Teacher's Day. However, she had given more pus cakes to her math teacher than her English teacher because she liked him more. Her math teacher was a fair man so he gave 59 pus cakes to the English teacher who was on the verge of tears. After that they had the same number of cakes. How many cakes did each of them have at first? DS9 said: WHAT?? This is disgusting! "It is", I agreed, and re-wrote same problems only with different stories about stars and clouds and wind in one problem and candy hunt in another. Sad or Funny? What do you think?
I thought the first one slightly amusing (especially for boys) but the second was gross. Very odd. Maybe it has something to do with the translation? These were originally published in Asia. I know I had a blast in Japan reading the "English" on adds and stuff. I wish now I had saved some of them. sigh. If it isn't too often, I would just change them like you do. I don't know on Singapore how many problems are with each lesson...but for Saxon I just pick out the ones I want ds to do...so I could skip this sort of thing.
Wow! We're only on Singapore grade 2, but we haven't run into anything like that yet. Yuck! I wonder if it makes a difference whether it is the US version or the original version. We have the US edition.
How morbid. I can see my dd getting sick to her stomach and potentially physically ill reading those. Glad you found them before your kids did.
We did Singapore through 3rd grade, and we never had word problems like that at all. They were always very generic things about baseball cards or buying food items. We certainly never had anything that bizarre. We ended up switching to Teaching Textbooks after 3rd, and I guess I'm glad we did!
Did those come from the actual Singapore Math textbook or workbook as found on Singaporemath.com? I saw those word problems listed on homeschooling-paradise.com and they stated that they were their word problems. They just based them on Singapore math concepts.
My kids were doing Singapore Math around 2nd or 3rd grade so I got them the PC game that goes along with the curriculum. It was weird, too. As you go through the game, fighting monsters and you lose, you see the boy character in this dark cave, light shining on only him. He sobs, holding his dead pet frog and he has bleeding cuts on his face. I thought it was the strangest thing and we got rid of the game. Inappropriate to say the least, IMO. Our text was fine, no strange or disgusting word problems. I can't imagine why they would put story problems like that in. Not entertaining just disgusting!
Cultures are different. In Asia, there's a certain fascination with animated characters, and what's gross to us is not necessarily gross to them. Likewise, if there was a question about a hunter counting bullets, the Europeans would be as repelled as we are about pus cakes. Singapore leads the world in education, and is far ahead of public education in the US. I've not used Singapore Math, but I suspect it's very good.
I think the first one is funny. The second one is just disgusting. I agree its probably a culture thing as much as anything else. In the defense of the bizarre word problems... My favorite from high school was something about screaming banshees. I loved it so much I even wrote it down. There's something to be said for more creativity than the general "If a triangle has an angle thats x degrees blah blah."
Was this the US edition or the other? We used level 3 thru 6 but don't remember any problems like these! LOL Of course, we used the textbooks very little and worked in the workbooks instead.
I think it is from here: http://www.homeschooling-paradise.com/math-word-problem.html It appears to be additional practice that this site made up for use with Singapore.
Makes me wonder if this site has any official association with the Singapore math program from www.singaporemath.com Perhaps the tone of these problems is not typical for the books. I don't remember any of this tone in the 3 levels we did.
It was from this site. Does it actually matter? It shouldn't be happening!! I am glad I am not alone! I know (again, I am from Russia, and here in the USA only for 10 years) I might think different a little b/c of cultural differences, but that was over my head. Weew, I feel better
I agree that it's likely a cultural issue. If it's not often, I'd just skip/rewrite those problems and be thankful you're using a good system.
You should definitely expect more than this. That's part of homeschooling! You did well by re-wording the problems. There's been a few things for us this year that just seems ridiculous. It makes it humourous for the student, when the teacher (mom) says what!?! And puts an X through the problem. It's another aspect of educating them.
John Saxon, when he was writing his original math series, put in word problems that involved literary references, the antics of mythological or fantasy creatures, and so on - that made it more interesting for the student, but never needed to go into malarky like popping pimples or dismembering bodies....
OK, I think we need to stop a minute and clarify.... It's now been established that these word problems were NOT written or presented by Singapore Math. They are from a site that offers additional practice problems. It was asked, "Does it matter?" YES! Because now many moms are thinking, "Wow, Singapore is inappropriate." When it's not Singapore at all (in this case). Let's be wary of bad press when it's untrue or unjust.
