The disturbing mindset

"If anything sums up the mindset of people at the moment," Mike Robinson speculates on UK Column News, "This is a primary school maths paper." [He assures viewers the answers have been blotted out so as not to identify the pupil]

It is headed Defuse the Bomb. Solving Equations....

It then goes on to set the maths problem:

The Mathematician, a notorious terrorist has planted a bomb. You must defuse that bomb using the mathematical clues he`s left.

The bomb is represented by a rectangle with wires going out of it.

Solve the equations, then cut the coloured wires in the order that the answers appear, using the table ...

"What is it we are doing to our children here ?" asks Mike Robinson.

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It is a good question. I have no idea why anyone would want to use a terrorist`s bomb as a practical example for a mathematics problem.

Since the Manchester incident the fact that any educationalist would want to do that for primary schoolchildren looks even uglier.