Scary math puzzles and nursery rhymes in children's reference books

The story of the 12-year-old Nam’s father chopping off two fingers has been around for quite some time on social networking sites and Facebook. Many parents consider it harmless and a joke.

Minister Pham Vu Luan has answered, so no one believes it is a harmless matter anymore...

However, when Minister of Education and Training Pham Vu Luan appeared on VTV's program "People ask - Minister answers" recently, this story "made waves".

“Sand” is no longer a… fabrication?

Two examples that Vietnam Television editor asked Minister of Education and Training Pham Vu Luan in the program "People ask - Minister answers" last week confirmed that "mistakes" are no longer fabrications. The math problem "I have 5 fingers, I cut off 2 fingers, how many fingers are left?" was thought to only exist on the internet, but finally the book with this math problem was found.

Regarding the problem “Nam is 4 years old this year, Nam’s father is 3 times older than Nam. How old is Nam’s father this year? The answer given is Nam’s father is 12 years old”, when we asked this story to some teachers and publishers, we received a very common answer, that is, no one believes that any teacher would give either of these two problems to students to do.

Having worked in teaching and management for over 30 years, Ms. Luong Thi Tho - former Vice Principal of Quang Trung Primary School, Hoan Kiem, Hanoi said that she had never encountered this situation at her school. Because the teachers' teaching work in the school all have teaching aids, so when teaching, they do not have this situation.

Mrs. Tho also hypothesized that if it did happen, it would be one of three cases: First, it might not be real, because there is no teacher who is "stupid" to that extent, even those who have not been properly trained; second, it might happen but only in the case of a certain teacher, at some point people might say 5 fingers, fold down but if they do not understand, it becomes cut off. Third, the child's ability to communicate back to the parent is not correct. However, Mrs. Tho still affirmed that she does not believe this happened.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Binh - former teacher of Quang Trung Primary School, Hoan Kiem, Hanoi also affirmed that she had not encountered this situation. She thought that this was unreasonable. Besides, she also affirmed that if it happened, it was the publisher's fault in the typesetting.

On the Publishing House side, according to Ms. Vu Thanh Viet - Deputy Director of the Culture - Information Publishing House, this matter needs to be reconsidered. It is not enough to just follow whatever people are talking about, that is very tiring, first for the managers, secondly it causes confusion for public opinion. We must find the origin of these two math problems to be able to talk about it. It must be clear, have a source, has any teacher taught it? In the era of information technology development, information is so chaotic that it is difficult to distinguish. And if we just rely on floating things, there are endless. Like the promotion technology of some artists, they themselves put out things that are not true to become famous.

Scary… nursery rhyme

Also last week, more reference books for children were discovered to have inappropriate content, causing public outrage. Typical examples are two articles “Playing Clapping Hands” and “Mr. Nhang Ma Ma Nhang” with sentences such as: “Living with whom?/ Living with grandmother/ What grandmother?/ Grandmother/ What kind of grandmother?/ Foreign invaders/ What invaders?/ Invaders” and “Mr. Nhang Ma Ma Nhang/ Gave birth to a snake and lizard with a short tail/ Mr. Nhang said to keep it/ Mrs. Nhang beat it to death and buried it in a pile of ashes…” in the book “Nursery Rhymes for Preschool Children” volume 6 (Fine Arts Publishing House).

Due to some nursery rhymes containing offensive content, the book "Nursery Rhymes for Preschool Children" volume 6 (Fine Arts Publishing House) has been recalled.

As for the math exercise book on page 11 of the book “Addition and Subtraction within 100” by author Hoang Long (printed with the logo of Tre Publishing House, the archive box shows the licensing date as July 2002, submitted for archive in September 2003). The math exercise has the content: “My two hands have 10 fingers, but because I was playing with a knife, I lost two fingers. How many fingers do I have left?”. This math problem has a brief solution guide and an illustration with two hands and the index and middle fingers of the right hand being cut off on one side.

After being condemned by public opinion for both of the above books, on November 28, the Publishing Department (Ministry of Information and Communications) sent a document to book publishing companies, officially announcing that it would not release these two books for children with offensive content.

And… long story

In relation to this story, the selection of reference books is also an issue. As a teacher, Ms. Nguyen Thi Binh said that she only chooses reference books by reputable authors, which have been used by teachers for many years. However, from the management side, Ms. Luong Thi Tho said that using reference books is up to the teachers, and the school does not require the purchase of reference books. In fact, reference books come in many forms and types.

Ms. Tho's point of view when she was the Vice Principal in charge of professional matters was that teachers were only required to teach all textbooks, and that students who finished the textbooks "we were already very happy". As for reference books, she rarely encouraged teachers to use them, and only when teachers could teach the "fundamentals" well could they teach reference books.

As for the Publishing House, Ms. Vu Thanh Viet said that the process of publishing reference books is very strict. The author brings the manuscript and gives it directly to the Board of Directors, the Board of Directors will hand it over to the Editorial Board, the Editor-in-Chief will hand it over to the appropriate editors. The editor will read and have a review sheet for the manuscript to see if it is eligible for publication. If there are one or two points that need to be reviewed, it must be marked for the Editor-in-Chief to review. If the Editor-in-Chief cannot resolve it, it must be presented to the Publishing House Board of Directors.

For any doubtful matters, including normal reference books, the Board of Directors will ask the right professors and doctors in the field to read and review them. After reading, they will give their opinions, and if they can be published, they will be allowed to publish. If they do not meet the publisher's requirements of being sent to a specialist for review, and if the review is negative, the publisher will never accept such manuscripts and will immediately reject them.

Ms. Viet also affirmed that, especially for history books, the Culture and Information Publishing House is very careful. If the author's work is in the right field, we must also read carefully to see if it is related to the publishing issue or not, if it is related to politics.

However, in recent times, not only the two reference books mentioned above, but also many reference books for students from preschool to high school have offensive content. However, when the incident occurred, the only solution by book distribution companies and publishers was to fine and recall the books, while the books had been published for many years, even posted on websites and "traveled" all over the world...

According to Phapluat online