Sarah McLanahan and Kaitlynn Ranck

Group 13

“Alternative Math” is a comedic short film written by David Maddox and Malcolm

Morrison that shows the disrespect shown to teachers by helicopter parents. The film was

directed and produced by David Maddox in 2017 by IdeaMan Studios. Maddox is the owner of

IdeaMan Studios located in Dallas, Texas and has written and produced multiple other short

films including “The Box” in 2006 and “A Ghost Story” in 2017. With over 1.5 million views on

YouTube, the popular short film “Alternative Math” has been featured at dozens of film festivals

from Miami to Sydney and many places in between. The film has won multiple awards at many

of these festivals including the best short film in show at the Austin Revolution Film Festival.

This paper and video will discuss the context, audience, message, and worldview of this film.

Maddox and Morrison are using this short film to reach many people who show a lack of

respect and trust to teachers. The specific audience could be said to be “helicopter” parents,

which are parents who are overly protective of their children or are heavily involved in their

child’s life. This nine-minute short film shows the sad reality of the disrespect many teachers

must face on a regular basis from helicopter parents and others. We know this because of how

the parents, faculty, and community mistreat the teacher for simply doing her job. Due to the

disrespect shown by parents, students, and other individuals, teachers are often left in fear of

doing their job.

The idea shown in the film is relevant to many happenings in our society and culture

today. The simple fact that 2 plus 2 equals four seems obvious and unchanging to us, but this

film shows how our culture is changing the belief that nothing is an exact fact and that a person
can believe whatever they want to believe. The idea for this film came about when Maddox

realized that two people not being able to agree on a simple fact was a reality. Although this film

shows this issue in a comical way, the truth of the reality of the disrespect of teachers is

prominent and needs to be dealt with. This film portrays the power that parents have over their

child’s education and have the capacity to bully teachers out of their job. It also illustrates that

the school system tends to be more concerned with keeping parents happy and content rather

than focus on students’ education.

The film was produced to be politically neutral, so viewers could take a stand on either

side politically, but the purpose and message of the film is still very prominent. The writers

display the concern that is evident in our culture that parents and other guardians tend to get too

involved in their children’s lives, to the point where it is impossible for the teacher, or whoever

the parents are arguing, to do their job properly. On top of having to deal with the parents,

“Alternative Math” reveals how much of an impact the school board has on what the teacher can

and cannot teach. Although many people in our culture today agree on the school board being

heavily involved in what curriculum teachers are using, this could raise another issue that may

have more than one side. This film can bring to the audience’s attention concerns that exist

within our education and can implore parents to be cautious and understanding when deciding on

their child’s education, but also to realize that they need to let the teachers do their job and not

get in the way of their child’s education.

In this film “Alternative Math”, a teacher is simply doing her job by trying to teach her

students the basics of math. Since she is teaching kids in the first grade, the math is fairly simple.

Two plus two equals four. Three plus three equals six. Common Math. However, when this

teacher informs her student that his answer to one of his problems is incorrect, she faces
difficulties for doing so. Even though two plus two does indeed equal four, she is told that she’s

“not allowed to tell her students what is right and wrong” because in doing so she is belittling the

children in saying that her answer is the only right answer. This problem becomes so intense that

the principal, superintendent, mayor, and media all get involved in treating this lady as though

she is in the wrong. The director is trying to portray the common nature of humans in this film.

When we as humans are told that we are incorrect in our standings, our immediate reaction is to

get defensive and turn the fault to the accuser rather than accepting that we are indeed wrong.

Humans have a habit of twisting what they hear into what they want to hear and when someone

disagrees with them, that person is wrong. But how does that make sense? How can one human

who is accused of being wrong and not come to terms with it accuse someone else of being

wrong? This film shows the hypocrisy amongst the world. It also shows that when the media gets

involved in situations, the problem can get blown way out of proportion. In this film the teacher

was indeed correct, but because one set of parents did not think it was okay for her to mark their

kids answer wrong, it caused a massive wave of hatred to fall upon this teacher. She was

slandered, she was accused of belittling her students and destroying their creativity, and

eventually she was fired. Isn’t that how the world is today? If someone believes differently from

the world, don’t they get kicked to the curb and called entitled? Don’t they get treated differently

for have different beliefs? Don’t they get torn down for doing the exact same thing everyone else

is doing—expressing their personal opinion? The director is showing us that the world can be

hypocritical and that having different beliefs may cost you. Ironically at the end, the

administrator is paying this teacher her next two paychecks where she would receive “$2,000+

$2,000”. Looking at this equation, we realize that this would equal to four thousand dollars, but

the teacher smiles and says to the principle, “Actually, it’s $22,000”. This is ironic because her
math isn’t correct but it’s relatively the same equation the little boy faced in his 1st grade class.

He believed two plus two equals twenty-two and so everyone stuck up for him. Because of this

she turned it around on the principle by informing him that since they believe two plus two

equals twenty-two, then her paycheck of two thousand dollars plus two thousand dollars now

equals twenty-two-thousand dollars. And since he stood up for the first grade little boy, he had to

write the twenty-two-thousand-dollar check for the teacher.

In a sense we agree with this worldview. As Christians we know because of John 15:18-

25 that we are not going to live in a world where we can openly express our opinions and beliefs.

“Know that if the world hates you, it hated me first.” As Christians we are not part of the world,

we are a part of Christ, and because of that we are to be different. We know that we will be

criticized. In fact, Jesus himself said that if we love Him, the world in return will hate us. The

director expresses in this film that not everyone is going to have the same opinions and beliefs,

but he also shows that it’s not a good enough reason to hate someone or distrust them in any

way. As an audience, we can learn a lot from this short film. Even though it is comical and seems

slightly unrealistic, the lessons one can learn from this film can apply to many different areas of

life.