The fate of Florida science teacher Dean Liptak is unclear as parents express concern over violent test questions that involve propelling students and driving over babies.
According to WTSP, the Fivay High School teacher in Hudson, Fla., assigned test questions like:
“A 50 kg student has a momentum of 500 kg m/s as the teacher launches him toward the wall, what is the velocity of the student heading toward the wall?””A northbound car with a velocity of 100 m/s ran over a baby with a momentum of 800 kg m/s, what is the mass of the car?”
Parents tell WTSP that the test questions are “violent” and “inappropriate.” School officials have not disclosed the teacher’s status at the school.
Liptak has been teaching in Pasco County Schools for several years and recently moved to Fivay from Ridgewood High School. His students at Ridgewood had positive reviews of his teaching on RateMyTeachers.com. One student calls him the “best teacher in the world.”
A similar incident in Washington, D.C. last march led to a teacher’s termination. Parents were outraged after the educator sent third graders home with morbid math problems that referenced cannibals, baking people in ovens and a child whose brain had become infested with fire ants.
And just two months prior, Norcross, Ga. elementary school parents were upset when math problems that used examples of slave beatings were used in class. The teacher who assigned the problems eventually resigned.
The science test in Florida comes at a volatile time for the school, as the Fivay community continues to remember their late classmate Jessica Laney, who committed suicide last month.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/30/violent-test-questions-at_n_2582404.html
I suspect that these sort of questions originate with the students as teachers try to figure out ways to engage them in their subjects. Unfortunately in class humour, especially the dark kind, doesn’t often look good in dispassionate print.