of 5th-grade math?
Our neighbor just brought her crying daughter into our palatial mansion because the kid was having trouble with her 5th-grade math. Never fear, because I kick math’s arse, thankyouverymuch. After yelling at the child for several minutes to stop crying and suck it up and put her big-girl pants on (alright, maybe it went down a little smoother than that), we got down to the numbers.
I’m going to go out on a limb and tell most people what they already know–what on EARTH are they doing to kids these days when it comes to math? First off, the problems were on her computer. And, instead of just getting to the down and dirty of solving something with pen and paper, we had to choose what the logical steps would be. What the hell? I can’t solve a problem anymore because I have to go through meaningless steps? Luckily, my steps mostly matched up with what the computer program wanted, and everything turned out okay in the end.
The worst part was that the girl knew how to do the problems, knew the basics of math, had a good idea of what the lesson was, but just didn’t know what this particular MATHBOT3000 was looking for. Thus, we teach them at an early age to follow directions, kind of, and choose what looks to be something that could be right if we took more steps to do it than any normal person. Hooray for America!!!
Since, it’s Valentine’s Day, I will not massacre any more poor students and revel in my victory over a computer program of math choices. Time to celebrate all that is good in life by going out early and having some food and drink before others think similar thoughts.
No matter how bad your day, I leave you with Sam Cooke. You are welcome.