Perhaps it should not be here, but as it is math, I decided to share it here. Feel free to move it if it should be somewhere else!
Maybe you have heard the story, maybe you have not, but a kid on a school somewhere (article didn’t mention any details) got a math test, and he had to show how he solved 5x3. So he wrote down ‘5+5+5=15’, but that was wrong. The teached marked it as incorrect, as he/she wanted to see ‘3+3+3+3+3=15’. On a second question, the kid then drew 6 rows of 4 lines to solve 4x6, which was also marked as incorrect as it had to be 4 rows of 6 lines…
I am no teacher, so if there is any good reason behind this, please do tell me as I’d love to know. Why take a correct answer of a kid who clearly understands what he has to do to solve it, and tell him the answer is wrong? I think school systems are often as crappy as they get right for these kinds of things, taking a good answer and marking it wrong as it is not what you want to read, but this one definitly is the most rediculous to me. If the teacher of my daughter would start nit picking on things like whether she’d solve 5x3 or 3x5, I’m gonna break that teacher’s brain with psychological knowledge on problem solving. Heck, if someone told me to solve 5x3 I’d go with 5+5+5 too, as it is way easier than 3+3+3+3+3. Sure, as an adult those things are very easy, especially if you do a lot of mental calculation, but for a kid I think it should be rewarded that he turns the numbers around, which makes it easier…
Maybe I’m too old-fashioned, but I think math is math, and it should matter if you solve something one way or the other, as long as your method is fitting, executed correctly, and your eventual answer is correct. By nit picking on small things like whether it is AxB or BxA, you don’t encourage kids to explore the world of math, at least it wouldn’t have encouraged me. But then again, school in general is too focussed on the concept of only-one-correct-answer-even-if-other-answers-are-not-wrong.
First, let’s defend the teacher.
He/she literally says ‘use the repeated addition strategy to solve 5 times 3’.
So (s)he wants to see 5 times a ‘3’.
The kid solved it differently however.
3 times 5 is the exact same as 5 times 3. And, 3 times 5 solves 5 times 3 quicker!
So the algorithm the kid uses is more efficient than the requested one. 3+3+3+3+3 is more difficult to do than 5+5+5!
So imho, extra points should be given.
The second one is even more difficult to fault.
The question is to draw an array to show and solve 4X6.
Whether you use 4 rows or 4 columns is irrelevant of course if the question is to draw an array.
The sad thing is that students will be put off by teachers like this.
Teachers for which there is only one answer to a problem, even if there is an more efficient way of solving it.
Fortunately the stupidity of the situation gets a lot of attention and press.
So I totally agree with you on his.
He/she literally says 'use the repeated addition strategy to solve 5 times 3'.
So (s)he wants to see 5 times a '3'.
With respect, can this child have been expected to employ such literalness? “5 times a 3” is simply not what is generally meant by 5x3. Instead, the child seems to rightly have been taught that 5x3 and 3x5 are exactly the same. It is pure pedantry to suggest otherwise.
I hope this kid’s parents were able to encourage him after receiving such a pathetic response from a short-sighted teacher.
Josh, I thought that second article was spot-on. The first link may have been relevant if this was an A Level student doing Pure Maths, not third grade!
No. And even then, teachers should encourage alternative solutions.
I hope so too. Here in Holland kids cannot calculate when they get out of school.
Without a calculator they are unable to even get a ball park figure for the answer to a problem.
Having teachers and parents that make this fun would help this a lot.
