Users are divided over how a child interpreted his fraction worksheet. One users loses it. Insults include, "i'm starting to see how "are you smarter than a 5th grader" is such a success." (np.reddit.com)
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67 ups - 27 downs = 40 votes
109 comments submitted at 01:04:07 on May 12, 2014 by HowDoesBabbyForm
How can she accuse that mom of making her child a special snowflake when she named her own kid TESLA
Oh Christ, you weren't kidding. Goddamn Oatmeal...
Poor kid, banned form /r/technology just 'cause of his name.
Now, I could see sneaking a "Nikola" and generally calling him Nick as a little nod to one of our favorite mad scientist's, but TESLA? Really? That's not even subtle.
Seriously, I have major doubts as to taking any advice from a mom that makes that poor of a decision for her child
Wow. There's a lot of jumping to conclusions on both sides here. The kid's not a genius extraordinaire for coming up with that solution, but I doubt he did it intentionally just to piss off the teacher and is destined to be a special snowflake who fails at life because his parents coddled him. From the looks of the whole thread it doesn't even seem like OP made as big a deal out of it as some of the people commenting.
I don't think most of the people are considering him a genius, per se. I got the feeling that people felt that he just thought about it in a different way, and that he should be guided on what answer the teacher was looking for, but at the same not discouraged from seeing the world differently. And even encouraged to look at the world from different perspectives.
A lot of really "smart" people aren't necessarily that traditionally smart, they just look at the world a little differently. And I think most of the people wanted him to be encouraged to keep thinking outside the box.
I'm assuming flair indicates their children's names, did that woman actually name her kid Tesla?? Seriously?
Tesla is a pretty good name though. She definitely could have done way worse
Marconi? Norton? Seebeck? It's safe to say she could have done worse...
"Marconi! You forgot your sandwich again!"
I misread that as "macaroni" which might be even worse
Macaroni is delicious and any child should be grateful and humbled to be named after such a glorious food.
> "Marconi! You forgot your sandwich again!"
Well at least she'll be able to tell him from a distance.
^^^sorry
Tesla is a terrible first name for a kid.
edit: god damn it's her daughter, even worse
At first I disagreed with you, people name their kids after famous people all the time.
Then I cry on the inside when you say it's her daughter.
I honestly like it.
She goes on to call OP's child a special snowflake. Then in a separate thread she calls the interpretation disrespectful and disobedient.
> because shit like this is how we end up with special little snowflakes who aren't allowed to flunk a class and graduate high school without being able to read or do basic math. whether he did it wrong on purpose or on accident, HE DID IT WRONG and he should not be told that he did it right. in every real-world application of this kind of problem, he did it wrong. someone asks for half a dollar? you give them 50 cents, you don't tear a dollar bill in half. the only mistake this teacher made was trying to make the lesson slightly more enjoyable by involving pictures and coloring, when apparently the only way to teach math to the children of you assholes is to stick to strict text-only "write half of 6 as a fraction"/"what is 4 divided by 2?" problems lest your little rembrandts get all creative with the instructions. you're the people who make life so difficult for the people who write user manuals, you're the reason we have warnings like "DO NOT INSERT KNIFE INTO EYEBALL" on everything, you think you're being so cute when you're just being a pain in the ass. nobody wants to work with the guy who does shit like this but you all are sitting here telling this kid that he's got the right idea, keep it up! seriously, do you have any idea how frustrating it is to have to say to someone 8 times a day "OH YOU FUCKING KNOW WHAT I MEANT" because they think it's funny to play dumb or take you literally or just twist your words around? if the kid seriously misunderstood the directions then CORRECT HIM, don't tell him he's already correct. otherwise he's just going to grow up to be a pain in the ass for people like me.
Lol, you better not be kidding with fractions under her watch
We've been getting some pretty good copypasta around here lately.
Seems people are acting as if the kid was handed the sheet without any context. If your teacher had been discussing halves building up to the test, then you answer like that, I would say it's wrong too.
This whole thing was pretty funny to read. I actually saw the photo of the assignment and read directions then thought, 'Wait, what did they do wrong?" Then had to look at that -71 comment to figure it out.
Complain to the school? The fuck? How would that solve anything? What would they expect the outcome of that to be? How about you just take 2 seconds to tell your child their interpretation is not wrong and move on.
Right? And every wins in the long run because no one cares about grade school.
I mean, the kid was wrong. Just tell him what he did wrong and move on.
Man I woulda gave the kid extra credit for thinking outside the box.
But, if you had just given a lesson on halves(probably with similar examples), would you still say the same?
This answer has a red flag of a kid who didn't pay attention in class and is trying to "wing-it".
While technically correct, they are wrong given the context.
Eh, I'd give him half credit.
So, you would only draw half the mark? ;p
/ or \?
Sorry, that question is above my paygrade.
Showed the picture to my pops. He spent his life educating children with learning disabilities. He was damn good at it too. Still receives messages and emails from former students thanking him for helping them get into college and graduate high school.
After having a chuckle he said that this is the type of answer that he would've smiled at and then marked correct. His reasoning is that the child clearly understands the subject at hand, being fractions. His gap is with the language. Therefore the appropriate course of action is mark it correct and then have a talk with the child about language.
At the end of the day you aren't teaching the kid english. You're teaching him math. If he gets the math right then it's right. If you mark it wrong then it just confuses him because he's looking at it from a mathematics perspective and you're marking him wrong from a language perspective. That's not fair. That's reffing basketball by football regulations.
I think it's important to note that if said student had learning disabilities I would mark it correct. As then it actually falls on the teacher to clearly explain themselves to avoid confusion. In this situation the answer would actually be sort of "cute".
.... but your dad wouldn't give him extra credit for it.
So while this comment gets an upvote, the previous comments downvote stands. I am truly sorry -Poe-.
So? He's wrong. "Thinking outside the box" is not in and of itself a good thing
Except he wasn't wrong. It's really bizarre to me that people want to play hardass because it's a math problem, yet 1/2 apples times 2 is still 1 fucking apple.
If you want to get down to it, he didn't cut them exactly in half.
But the thing that irritates me is the self-righteous attitude everyone takes that "Oh, he's so smart! This teacher is horrible for marking him down!"
It doesn't mean he's smart, but the teacher is terrible for giving out ambiguous-ass coloring problems on a math assignment and expecting the kids to just intuit the context so they can decompose the problem in the specific, extra-correct correct way.
This is why all worksheets should come with an example at the top.
I dunno. It was pretty obvious to me
What seemed pretty obvious? That his correct answer is different from the other correct answer?
And are you 7 and learning about fractions for the first time?
Normally they teach fractions with physical objects first, so it is a little odd to cut them in half like the kid did. Technically correct isn't what you're shooting for at 7 years old, you're trying to make sure they understand the basic concepts. I agree with parent comment of the whole chain, just explain what the kid was supposed to do, say he did color each fruit half one color and the other half another, but he was supposed to color each fruit one color, half of them one color the other half another.
Or some better explanation made up by an actual 2nd grade teacher and not my high ass at 1 in the morning.
I get that he may not have understood the assignment. I'm taking issue with the "incorrect is incorrect" crowd simply because that is an incredibly stupid and ironic position to take in this situation.
That's not a correct answer. "Half of the" indicates half of the total quantity. "Half of each" would indicate half of every piece of fruit. I'd have given him the point just because he got the idea of fractions which is what the paper is all about, but technically he didn't follow the instructions.
Well they probably did have a lesson where they discussed this exact thing...
I don't think he's genius. That aside, he's not wrong. The point of the exercise is to teach him fractions. He clearly understands fractions. He clearly understands what 1/2 is. What he didn't understand was what the teacher wanted. Language is finicky and contextual but math is math. He was asked to color half those fruits certain colors and he colored half of those fruit's the designated colors. His division was on point. Now had the teacher asked him to simplify, then he'd be in trouble.
I honestly saw it as wrong. It's a reading thing not a math thing. When i say color half of the apples red, its should make you picture half of a set of apples red and the other half a different color. When i say color half of EACH apple red, then it is clear that i'm instructing you to color each apple half red.
No, 1/2 apple times two are two half-apples.
Apples arent a mathemathical concept that can be divided and put back togheter without any loss of property. If someone tells you "careful, half those apples are poisoned!", you arent going to be safe by literally cutting them in the middle and eating only one half of each.
EDIT; you know, for people advertising thinking outside the box and coming with creative solutions, you guys are pretty quick to resort into downvoting at anyone who thinks differently from you without arguing anything in its stead.
Well, depending the LD 50 of whatever they're poisoned with, you might be.
Well lets assume you also want to avoid explosive diarrhea.
Once again, depends entirely on what they're poisoned with.
Also, explosive diarrhea and I are like this, son.
Can we assume they are poisoned with the sort of thing people would warn you about not to eat them about?
I mean, it is pretty obvious where I was going with that.
> Can we assume they are poisoned with the sort of thing people would warn you about not to eat them about?
Yeah... um. What?
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Its a great thing in and of itself. We need to be teaching kids to be innovative thinkers, not people with an inability to see the bigger picture, as yourself.
There is no "bigger picture" here. He's wrong.
Holy shit your children are going to be fucking retarded. Save yourself some time and sign them up for tech school in advance.
Damn, you're angry.
Also, my kid will get better grades than yours, because I'll teach him to follow the fucking rules.
Somehow you think grades and rules have some sort of correlation to intelligence or are more important than critical thinking skills?
FYI almost every brilliant mind that changed our world belonged to someone who didnt play by the rules.
Good point. This kid is gonna change the wooooorld.
I'll play it safe. Most people are much more successful playing by the rules
This is honestly a fair argument. Anyone smart enough to break the rules will learn to break them when beneficial anyway.
Thanks for the wisdom grandma.
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Ease up there tiger.
They say great science is built on the shoulders of giants. Not here. At Aperture, we do all our science from scratch. No hand holding.
You realize the kid didn't see the bigger picture right? They were unable to think beyond the instructions as to what the teacher actually wanted. Remember, think of the context of which this question is given, its a classroom and the teacher almost certainly had a lesson on this.
That is what I am wondering.. It did not say "Color half of EACH apple red" it said "Color half of the apples red". This should not be this much hoopla to resolve.
Indeed. I'm wondering if half the people in both this and the other thread need a grammar lesson.
The kid is 7.
That is what is getting me. Yeah the kid got it "wrong", but, the kid is 7.
None of this needs that much discussion. It's 7 year old homework.
If that kid was wrong I don't want to be right.
> If that kid was wrong I don't want to be right.
Remember, only cowards delete downvoted comments!!!
^^^<3
I really don't understand patting that kid on the back so hard. From the thread it looks like he's on track to be fucking president. Instead, he took the easy way out and solved it in such a way that he didn't have to count anything or use math.
I don't think you understand, indicating half of each fruit instead of half of the total fruits is literally a sign of genius literally no one has ever thought to do this before.
SnapShot
(mirror | open source | create your own snapshots)
There was a time when I thought adults, and parents in particular, were all nice, kind, mature people. But I guess age and parenthood isn't a good measure of maturity.
When she started complaining about karma I was blown away. Is she really the parent of a child? I would like to think that parents have more important things to worry about than internet points.
Internet mums are massive fans of winning internet points.
"It's not the years, it's the mileage."
We've got another troll chiming in now, too. /u/SpicGorillaFeminist has decided I'm a shitty teacher (I'm not the kid's teacher, I'm the one who commented first and unfortunately apparently lit the fire.)
Just wanted to tell you that you were wrong in the other thread. What the kid did only showed a lack of the necessary reading comprehension. That command does not correspond with what the kid did, and if he thinks it does then they need to explain to him why it doesn't work. They definitely shouldn't run to the principal all proud of incorrect homework. That's nuts.
Just wanted to tell you that you're not grasping the point, which is that the teacher should have spoken with the kid, told him how his answer is correct (which it is) and what she was expecting, rather than simply red X it and send it home. We're talking about a 7 year old child here, whose reading comprehension skills are not yet developed. The command does correspond with what he did, down to the letter. For him to have taken the instructions as they were given and do what he did was technically correct. Asking other teachers, the consensus would be that the kid showed a more advanced thought process than the literal one expected of a child his age, that we would have marked it correct but explained what we were looking for and that the parent should address it with the teacher - if not because of the issue at hand, to clarify whether the kid is comprehending other directions in class the way the teacher intends them. If the teacher is unresponsive to this conversation, a chat with the principal is completely appropriate.
How is it tehnically correct or advanced? The questions refer to groups of fruit, not individual fruits and it is clearly not the correct solution.
OH MY GOD, my cup runneth over with butter! It hath spilled over into here! Praise be the lords!
I love all the people who chimed in with "I didn't even notice what was wrong."
Let's not forget the most important part, they probably had a class lesson on this topic where they did something very similar to this worksheet.
SnapShots: 1, 2, 3 ^[?]
^^Anyone ^^know ^^an ^^alternative ^^to ^^Readability? ^^Send ^^me ^^a ^^PM!
> when it says "FRACTIONS" at the top and everything? you looked at a group of 6 bananas and it never occurred to you to color in 3 of them?
Isn't it obvious the exercise on FRACTIONS is not asking for fractional units?!
I love how this person advocates thought policing at an early age. That's going to make for a bright future.
>She's also the perpetrator of the "magic cards in the safe" hoax a while back. Lovely person all around.
better be sure to downvote extra hard
Ok so yeah she could be a bit more polite in her assertion that the child is wrong but the others with their "well he is not exactly wrong" are just as bad.
Yeah, the other two or three users who replied to the post didn't get downvoted when they said the child was wrong. Then again, they don't seem to lack tact.
> She's also the perpetrator of the "magic cards in the safe" hoax a while back.
no i am not. that was my husband.
Is your flair in that subreddit child names? Is Tesla a boy or girl?
tesla is my daughter.
cool, the a ending makes it work even if most people think of a guy. I didn't mean to open the make fun of your kid's name thing.
Why?
Well it all starts when a man loves a woman...
And the woman also loves Nikola Tesla?
do you really care?
Kind of, yeah.
Congrats on guaranteeing your child will be made fun of for her name. Please tell me you call her Tessie or something even close to being a first name.
she can go by her middle name if it's a problem.
Are you going to be sad when your daughter gets her name changed?
PS. You're right about the fractions. The kid that did the homework is lacking in the common sense department.
no i won't. i gave her a very vanilla middle name specifically in the event she decides she hates her first name. it'll be weird calling her something different from what i'm used to calling her, but i'll get used to it. then again, if this lady didn't feel compelled to change her name, odds are good neither will my daughter.
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