Bizarre H.S. Biology Lesson Teaches Promiscuity, Fails at Blood-Typing
Click above for video on the story that includes an epic Maury Povich reference made all the more fascinating by his failure to conceive a child with his wife Connie Chung.
I'm sorry to say that we didn't have this sort of question at good ol' Mater Dei High School in New Monmouth, New Jersey. But then again, I was no good at science anyway, so I probably wouldn't have gotten the right answer.
Audri Basaj, a freshman at Romeo High School, just wanted to get her bio homework on DNA done when she got to a question that stumped her.
It reads: "The sister of the mom above also had issues with finding out who the father of her baby was. She had the state take a blood test of potential fathers. Based on the information in this table, why was the baby taken away by the state after the test?"
As if that question isn't tacky enough, look at the list of possible fathers: Bartender, Guy at the club, Cabdriver and Flight attendant.
Upon seeing the assignment, Basaj's parents understandably flipped out and apparently sent the paper back to school with a note reading, "We teach our children not to sleep around."
Superintendent Nancy Campbell said the question came from a three-page assignment about blood types. It came from a website—teachingbioformatics.com—which the teacher has used for getting problems that have the components using the concepts the children can understand.
Campbell said the question will be revised.
And while they're revising the question, school officials might want to check the credibility of the source. According to this calclulator, there's simply no way that a Type O mother is going to give birth to a Type AB kid. So breathe easy, Bartender, Guy at the club, Cabdriver, and Flight attendant. But for god's sake, get a VD test already. And somebody find out the blood type of Kid Rock, Romeo High's best-known alum.
Update: I checked out the website that supposedly provided the question. It actually just links to a wide range of sites selling everything from urinary catheters to personalized t-shirts to online curricula. But exactly how anybody got a question—even a patently wrong problem—is beyond me. According to the most recent Romeo Community Schools Annual Report (get it here) fully 81 percent of the district's teachers have master's degrees and 100 percent are rated "highly qualified for required content."
