It wasn’t so long ago that elementary-school math problems dealt in contexts such as two characters splitting lumber supplies or the distribution of apples and oranges. Sure, those questions were rote, dull work, but they hammered home the fundamentals of mathematics.

Well, it seems one teacher recently employed by a D.C. charter school found that all too boring, and instead opted for a lesson plan that was, shall we say, quite descriptive. Instead of Johnny and Janey going to the grocery story, a third-grade teacher at Center City Public Charter School’s campus in the Trinidad neighborhood sent students home with questions such as this one:

My 3 friends and I were caught and tied up by 1023 screaming cannibals in a jungle lastnight. Soon we were feeling terribly itchy because of the mosquitoes. We begged the cannibals to scratch us. [Two hundred-nineteen cannibals refused because they were busy cutting vegetables. The rest of them, however, surrounded us in equal numbers and began to scratch us with their teeth, just like dogs. It felt good! How many cannibals scratched me?

The narrator and his three friends were being gnawed on by 804 screaming cannibals. But the real answer is, of course, to ask the teacher just what the hell he was thinking. The unnamed teacher was fired last week, WUSA 9 reported Friday, for using a set of 20 questions that presented simple arithmetic questions in gruesome—and sometimes borderline racist—scenarios.

In some cases, the questions veered on the outright macabre:

John’s father gave him 1359 marbles on his birthday. John swallowed 585 marbles and died. [Nine] of John’s friends came for his funeral the next day. John’s grieving father gave the remaining marbles to John’s friends in equal numbers. How many marbles did each friend get?

John, he of the expansive stomach, left 774 marbles for his friends, each of whom received 86. But seriously, who comes up with such a bizarre example?

The teacher downloaded the questions from a website called Homeschooling-Paradise.com, which offers “Totally Free Homeschooling and Educational Resources!” (capital letters and exclamation point by the site) to people whom, I guess, want to educate and scare the crap out of their children at the same time. The “Singapore Math” series features similarly nasty questions across all grade levels. (And note, the Singapore method refers to the use of written examples in arithmetic problems, not the Dario Argento-style set-ups.)

“It doesn’t follow anything we do. We are about character, excellence and service and I found them to be violent and racist,” Beverly Wheeler, the CEO of Center City Public Charter Schools, told WUSA 9.

Here’s the full set of questions below. See if you can answer them all without first puking on your keyboard:
Homeschooling-Paradise Math Problems