It turns out the example of a math worksheet mixed with Maya Angelou questions is real.

[fishwax]

92. I mean, that's not really a big deal either, because it's *one* worksheet

Nobody is going to wind up horrible at math because they were able to rely on their knowledge of Maya Angelou to skate through high school algebra.

Besides, there is actually pedagogical value in that, too, as a supplementary approach. A hypothetical student who is not confident in math but is sort of confident in Maya Angelou facts could select from the multiple choice and then check their answer, thus getting practice at math (and potentially building confidence in so doing). Those kinds of exercises are actually really useful pedagogically, providing students who may not connect with a concept head on (or in the particular way that it is taught) the opportunity to sort of reverse-engineer their way into the concept. Now, an exercise like this on, say, an exam would be a different story altogether. But this is one worksheet. Not a curriculum.

But another point. We never ask why high school athletes need to run laps or do pushups. Why is there this idea that kids shouldn't have to practice math skills in a similar way?

This analogy doesn't work at all, for a variety of reasons. For one thing, nobody is saying that kids shouldn't practice math that way. (It's silly to judge one exercise as though it's a curriculum.) But there's also no reason that kids should *only* practice math in a similar way. Even athletes don't *only* practice by doing pushups or running laps or even doing skill drills. Coaches also incorporate all kinds of little mini-games and competitions (some of which include situations students would never encounter in a game) in order to break up the monotony and keep things interesting. Another difference, of course, is that athletes are a self-selecting population pursuing and approaching excellence in a particular discipline, whereas every kid in high school is going to be taking math class at some point. Similarly, nobody who absolutely hates basketball or thinks they're no good at it is going to be running laps or doing pushups at basketball practice, because the people who hate basketball or don't think they are any good at it are very unlikely to be at basketball practice. Those who are there probably don't (in most cases) love laps or pushups, but they're incentivized to push through it because they're motivated to get better at basketball and help the team succeed. A high school math teacher can't expect everybody in his third period trig class to be similarly motivated by the task. (A high school coach who also teaches PE is probably not going to approach basketball practice with the varsity squad the same way he approaches the basketball unit with the seventh-period sophomore PE class.)