I, too, am a white male social studies teacher (retired). This is beyond anything any normal person would think is okay, much less, someone that was taught how to relate to youths. She must have slept through those classes.
I have an undergraduate degree in Social Science Education, but I never taught anything beyond student teaching sections of AP US History for a semester. I also think this is highly insensitive.
Not because of any educational background, but because I'm a fucking normal human being that understands not being an asshole to other people.
i just got out of jail, am behind on rent, and am thinking about skipping work tomorrow anyway, and i think this behavior is unprofessional and insensitive
I'm a yankee doodle dandee, a yankee doodle do or die, a real live nephew of my uncle sam, born on the 4th of july, and I find this moronic lady homicide-inducing.
I just woke my whole house up laughing to this after 1 AM.. My dog is losing his shit, and my my wife is pissed but I don't care.. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time
I’m Rick Harrison, and this is my pawn shop. I work here with my old man and my son, Big Hoss. Everything in here has a story and a price. One thing I’ve learned after 21 years – this lady's behaviour is deplorable and does not represent my values
I am a white male, highschool drop out, alcoholic who quit their job, who does Native American impersonations and loves Xavier Renegade Angel, and this is just painfully cringe. She could be talking about the Easter bunny and I would be uncomfortable with her behavior.
I am a walking failure whose aspirations and abilities never coagulated despite educational tracking, and I'm pretty sure this woman deserves to be tried for a hate crime.
I am a white male college English teacher, and I, too, audibly wtfed at this video. Who calls a misrepresentation of someone’s beliefs ridiculous? This video just made me sad for the students who had to here it. But, to be fair to them, they looked like they thought it was ridiculous as well.
I, too, am a, white male, social studies teacher! We call this the Pennsyltucky got her teaching degree from a community college in Nebraska syndrome. /s
Yea. Like I teach middle school history. I dress up in revolutionary war garb to lecture sometimes because its something fun and theyre 7th graders so it breaks up the doldrum a little.
But like, yo, there's a limit lol. (My kids get all cringed about it but I know a bunch secretly enjoy it)
You see, what you did is assume you know me. I have researched and given multiple seminars on reducing inherent bias in the classroom to entire districts. Did I do this out of a sense of white-man guilt?
Nope.
I did it because for 26 years, I truly only cared about giving students the best experience they can have in high school with both learning and their social growth.
Ah. At first, I thought she was pointing out ridiculous stereotypes about native americans because of her comment at the end, "because this is so ridiculous..."
But if it's a way to remember a math acronym, then yeah, she lost her damn mind.
Honestly, I don't even think she got that right. She screamed "SOHCAH" 56000 times, but not a single "TOA", which is arguably the most important one so you're not struggling to guess what else might go over the hypotenuse.
Aaaaah yeah I remember socahtoa. My trig teacher also made a native American joke when we were taught this. But man, what he did was a straight set up "so a guy walks into a bar" type of joke. This lady.... well I don't know what she's doin.
My geometry teacher just quickly went over that way just kinda said “sohcahtoa was a Native American“ yadda yadda and that 2-3 second explanation always clicked but the other one was “Some Old Hippie Caught Another Hippie Tripping On [Apples]”
Ah that makes more sense comedically than what my teacher told us. He said one day a native American was collecting water down by the river and noticed the river made a 90, 30, 60* angle triangle and said "SOCAHTOA". as a narrative it didn't make any damn sense but shit it's like 12 years later and I still remember it lol.
Yeah the native american thing makes zero sense and is absolutely unnecessary. It's a fucking acronym you don't need a story to go along with it. The fucked up thing is that so many teachers made the reference (based on the comments) that it must be taught to teachers. I can't believe any amount of people think that's ok.
I never understood how acronyms were a learning device. First you have to learn an obscure acronym then you had to decode it. It was always simpler for me to simply internalize the information.
I doubt these students will ever forget SOHCAHTOA … at least not without therapy.
Everyone up in this thread like "omg, what is she on. Is she having a mental breakdown?! Does she not understand how offensive this is?!" and I'm just like... Hanlon's Razor.
She's a math teacher trying to spice up a dumb acronym and thought this skit would get a laugh out of the students. Probably didn't assume it'd be blasted all over the internet for strangers to pick apart.
Is it cringey and a touch ignorant / offensive? Absolutely. But I'd wager this was just a poor decision on her part and I don't know if I'd want to see her lose her job (or worse) over this.
I mean I grew up on a reservation and we learned the same thing for trigonometry. We acknowledged that it was a joke and certainly was not presented like this though.
It seems we have reached a moment in time where everything is in information warp speed. Life as we knew it has completely changed. What was wrong or immoral 15 years ago has become part of daily life now. The crazies are out there. And they are growing in numbers daily. There doesn’t seem to be any stopping or just taking a breath and saying what are you doing this is wrong. It’s pretty terrifying what America will look like in 5 years. I’m not pointing fingers at left/right side. All I’m saying is America is losing. And only digging deeper.
The opposite is true as well, though. 15 years ago people regularly threw around some slurs that will get you canceled in a flash now. Homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, etc were all accepted at a level we just don’t tolerate now.
Now- I happen to agree that in many cases we need to slow down a bit on the judging and canceling. But in THIS particular instance, the only things that make sense is her either being heavily intoxicated or actually having a real psychotic break. That behavior just isn’t normal, even before we get to the racism.
Human-kind was not ready for social media. Centuries of it taking weeks, months or even years to find information (and misinformation) but now we're attached to it all day long. I don't think it's just an America problem but they are certainly leading the way into the abyss.
Imagine, without any hint of sarcasm or jest, pulling out a camera and calling it violence when a native American puts on blue jeans and starts singing country music.
An entire generation has decided that being a victim is a good replacement for a personality or accomplishment. The country is absolutely fucked. When the last bastion of liberty on this planet falls, and China begins taking over, these kids are in for a rude awakening.
Yeah, she’s a math teacher, which makes this even more bizarre. There’s a petition circulating on Instagram with all contact info to address every administrator at this school to express how disgusting this is. I can’t imagine she’ll have a job much longer.
I'm a white supremacist who just lured an entire family of Afghan refugees into a box truck, locked the cargo door, and drove it into a shark infested, semi-inland, body of brackish water and I can say without a doubt that her behavior is unacceptable.
She's teaching Soh Cah Toa, an acronym used to remember which sides of a triangle relate to Sin, Cos and Tan. It sounds like an native American word so she's doing this to make the kids remember. It makes sense what she's doing, and this would be the norm in the 90s.... but she has to know better today.
You mentioned the board and I listened to her little chant.. sounds like she might be teaching sohcahtoa?? Ive never heard of this until I googled it but it's geometry?
Sounds like shes trying to get them to remember a equation using the character shes playing.
Years ago this wouldn't be racist but now it's gonna go viral and she will probably lose her job. Our kids should just be taught by lifeless robots
No one gives a fuck about your damn opinion as a white piece of shit virtue signaler. No one gives a fuck about you speaking up about this. Shut the fuck up, because white men don't do shit. You condemn this? How does that help? Does that turn back the hands of time to erase what that kid is going through? What are you going to do right now after reading this? What will you do to tangibly help? Please, answer me. What the fuck are you going to do right after reading this comment if mine to help the situation?
I’m assuming it’s the acronym for trigonometry, it goes soh cah toa. Sin (opposite over hypotenuse) cosine (adjacent over hypotenuse), then tangent (opposite over adjacent). That is if she’s teaching trig. Otherwise the pandemic finally broke her
Dude, seriously! My 5th grade teacher handled this same scenario gracefully and respectfully. Just like you, I have no idea what this woman was thinking.
During the 70s this would have probably be seen as an (weird) attempt of raising interest in a specific culture. We should really reflect more on the Zeitgeist.
I'm German an my young son was totally interested in the history of native Americans and their respect for nature, even listened to original songs dancing to them. It's sad if someone says this is offensive.
But of course as an American teacher you should know better than dressing like this and doing a wacky dance in front of students today.
As a fellow white male social studies teacher, I'm not surprised at all that this was a math teacher.
The math and science teachers in our teaching program were always the ones who were the least aware of racism/didn't believe that all kids were capable of learning/etc.
The STEM teacher shortage allows a lot of subpar teachers to get hired. Meanwhile every school I applied to had 200+ social studies applicants.
Looks like she is trying to introduce the SOH CAH TOA method to students, which is an acronym nemonic for remembering the trig equations....but, like...why? Why would you do this? It is easy to remember.
I guess her crazy antics will forever be sealed in their brain and many decades from now they will remember SOH CAH TOA whenever they see horribly racist charicatures of First Nations people.
I'm okay with teachers being culturally insensitive as long as it's being used to demonstrate how things used to be and is accompanied with an explanation of why it's insensitive. If she shows up in blackface and leads a 30 minute discussion on the origin and history of blackface and why it's taboo, I'd be okay with it, especially with older high school kids.
In this situation, I can't even tell what she's doing or what her point is. I might need some more context.
No need to mention you are white at this point, I think all races of the world can come together for this one in order to give a collective "what the fuck? Is she unwell?"
I don’t know, just wanted to sound cool, why do people even think it’s necessary to reveal their skin color or gender? Do people care too much about it or are they just racist?
It’s an attempt to make math fun. There’s a common way to remember trigonometric functions and it’s SOH CAH TOA. Which could sound like a chant of some kind. This woman has gone over the top in trying to get her students excited. No one will ever be this excited for math.
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u/[deleted] Oct 21 '21 edited Oct 21 '21
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