Why would you ask “How is this possible” when you expect the answer to be “it’s not”?
Kid gave a reasonable answer without all the math bullshit
Submitted 3 weeks ago by Mickey7@lemmy.world to [deleted]
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/4e1356c0-88bb-4620-9340-d063ba584e51.png
Comments
lugal@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
kkj@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Teacher got the worksheet from someone else and didn’t know the answer.
SARGE@startrek.website 3 weeks ago
Or teacher didn’t even see this, handed it to a high school student and said “grade this stack of papers”
I had that happen several times in science classes in 3rd-8th grade. Eventually I started arguing with the teachers in class, and boy did they not like being corrected.
Sorry Ms Avery, you not knowing that “Pb” is the abbreviation of the Latin word “plumbum”, where we also get “plumbing” from due to its use in piping in rome, doesn’t mean I got the answer wrong. To her credit, she looked it up and changed my grade before the end of class.
Ms hoschouli from 7th grade can get fucked though, a parallel circuit increases amperage load, not voltage load. I knew more about electronics in 7th grade than a college graduate who teaches science class, which in hindsight isn’t that impressive considering it was general science and not electronics specific… But in 7th grade, as far as I was concerned I was hot shit for knowing more than the teacher, and getting detention for calling her out in the middle of class. Never got the grade changed and I only got out of detention because my parents called the school.
ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Because these “teacher is dumber than a child” pictures are always fake. I’ve never seen a teacher write corrections on a student’s paper. Are they doing that for every wrong question on every paper? That would take forever!
5ibelius9insterberg@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
This happens all the time, at least in Germany. My teachers did it, and I do it too.
The picture is probably still ragebait.
Signtist@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
You can’t teach if you don’t identify where the students are getting things wrong and correct them. It’s one of the major reasons why teachers deserve so much more pay. My wife used to be a teacher, and she worked 2-3 hours past the end of school correcting students’ work pretty much every weekday, and spent several hours every weekend planning out her lessons for the following week. She got paid significantly less than me working in a basic entry-level 9-5 office position.
Zwiebel@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
How are you supposed to learn if they don’t tell you how to do it better? Not writing corrections seems like bad teaching to me
surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Some people become teachers because they love to educate children.
Some people become teachers because they have no control in their life and want to be the boss if something.
thefartographer@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Are they doing that for every wrong question on every paper? That would take forever!
I work in education in Texas. Yes, they do. And yes, it does. Now, most things are digital, so they have kids make a copy of the Google Doc and then grade that and leave comments on it. But if they have paper assignments, they often leave notes on them. Leaving notes on assignments and tests/quizzes (which is likely what this was) is part of their professional review.
Also, part of their regular professional review is whether or not they’re keeping proper documentation on student behavior. Different tiers of behavioral issues require different documentation/communication. So, not only are they writing notes on tests/assignments, they’re writing documentation on hundreds of students, contacting dozens of parents, creating lesson plans that have to be available in advance for parental review in case any parents want to dispute the materials, and they’re getting regular reviews.
And then, when all the kids are off enjoying summer, the teachers are working their summer job to supplement their shitty pay. And they’re going to mandatory “Professional Learning” courses to keep their teaching certification, some of which they are required to pay from their own pocket to attend.
In San Antonio, we don’t really have any “small” districts, so the numbers in the second paragraph assumes an elementary school of 300-600, middle school of 800-1200, or high school of 1200-2000 students.
Ironfacebuster@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I was told in 6th or 7th grade science class that you can’t hear underwater
SARGE@startrek.website 3 weeks ago
Ohio resident for grade school, they did it at 4 different school districts across every grade.
Can’t speak for anyone else.
vxx@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
[deleted]AugustWest@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Because the teacher is wrong and it’s an idiotic question.
The question asks the child to explain how Marty ate more pizza than Louis. “He didn’t” is not an appropriate answer to that question.
We know that Marty and Louis didn’t eat from the same pizza, because Marty ate 4/6 of a pizza and Louis ate 5/6 of a pizza. We also know that Marty did eat more, because it’s right there in the question.
The only logical answer is that Marty’s pizza is bigger, and so 4/6 of his pizza amounts to more pizza than 5/6 of Louis’s smaller pizza.
The question should have been “Marty ate 4/6 of a pizza and Louis ate 5/6 of a pizza. Explain who ate more pizza.”
Freshparsnip@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
The teacher is fucking stupid. The question says Marty ate more, that is not only possible it is a given.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The teacher is fucking stupid.
The teacher is likely under-trained, overworked, and under-qualified for the class. Common in districts where the focus of the administration is driving down the cost of education rather than delivering the highest quality.
That is, of course, assuming this is a real homework and not some agitprop churned out by a Facebook group or a social media account more interested in generating outrage than education.
Irelephant@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
With the choice of marker, I’d say its rage bait.
Shayeta@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
“Under-qualified” for the class? Are we really setting the bar beneath the level of a grade schooler?
Wilco@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
I agree, the kid is correct. This is the only viable answer.
Bgugi@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Not true. Marty could have also eaten pizza that was not his.
SassyRamen@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Take that to the principal, stupid teachers shouldn’t teach
remon@ani.social 3 weeks ago
Reminds me of the time when I got send to the principle for saying “fuck you” during class. I was saying it to a classmate, but the teacher felt it was directed at her.
Anyway, the principle (herself a German teacher, this happend in Germany) gave me detention and wrote a letter to my parents, saying it was because I made a sexist remark towards a teacher.
My Dad wrote back explaining the difference between a sexist and an obscene remark. They canceled my detention.
idiomaddict@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I was once called down to the principal’s office and told I would be expelled from my Catholic school because in spite of my catholic upbringing, I was an atheist (in the US, at a time when this was obviously unconstitutional, given that the school accepted non catholic students of other religions). They called my dad and had me wait in the hall outside the principal’s office. For context, my dad’s an agnostic who doesn’t harbor any positive views towards the Catholic Church, but is a huge fan of educators and would always side with the teacher, no matter how unfair they were being.
My dad went straight in without acknowledging me and spoke with them inaudibly for about a minute, before the secretary came out and sent me back to class. I never heard anything about it from the school again and when my dad got home, he just said I didn’t need to worry about it. Decades later, he still won’t tell me exactly what happened, but I honestly think he might have forgotten and doesn’t want to admit it.
SassyRamen@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Das ist echt krass xD Dein Papa hat vollkommen Recht
tormeh@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
Tge principal is not necessarily any smarter than the teachers. Often it’s the opposite.
Serinus@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
… or have a bit of empathy and talk to the teacher like a human.
FelixCress@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It is entirely possible and his answer was correct.
Excrubulent@slrpnk.net 3 weeks ago
Not only that, the two statements in the premise are simply given. How is the child to know one of them is false? At that point, why not say Marty ate more than Luis and therefore the fractions must be different? Maybe the fractions are wrong and Marty ate more.
Just an absolutely terrible question if that’s supposed to be the answer. I’d guess the teacher didn’t write the question and didn’t understand the answer.
Vinny_93@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
A third option is that there is a third pizza eater who also ate 4/6th of their pizza and gave 2/6th up Marty in exchange for the 2/6th Marty didn’t eat.
Or yeah maybe it was a larger pizza.
ExtremeDullard@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
The teacher is the one who’s confused here. The kid is entirely correct.
conditional_soup@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
I… Um… I’ve been looking at this for a minute and I can’t tell why the answer is unconventional, not what the fuck the teacher is on about.
Freshparsnip@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
The kid answered correctly, it’s not unconventional at all, the teacher is just stupid
King3d@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It’s fucking dumb. No where did it say the pizzas are equal size. So the kids answer is just as right as her bullshit answer.
lunarul@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
No, the kid’s answer is not “just as right”, it is the correct and expected answer. The teacher’s answer is wrong and proof the teacher doesn’t understand the question. The entire point of the question is understanding that fractions of a whole are relative to that whole and you can’t directly compare fractions from different wholes like that. 5/6 > 4/6 doesn’t mean Luis ate more pizza than Marty, it means Luis ate a larger share of his pizza than Marty ate out of his own.
conditional_soup@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
But… The teacher is just flat-out wrong. It says right there in the problem that Marty ate more, and then uses that fact as a foundation for the question of “x is true, HOW can x be true”. It’d be different if the question was “someone claims x is true; is it?”
howrar@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
The kid actually answered the question. The teacher’s expected response is basically “no, your question is wrong and I refuse to answer it.”
Pnut@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
I’m actually not sure this is real. I’ve had some shitty abusive teachers but even they would be capable of basic logic.
uniquethrowagay@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
The question asks “How is this possible?”
What they mean to ask is “is this statement true if both pizzas are the same size?”. To test whether the kids can compare fractures. It’s wrongly worded and the reaction is bad. If any of it is real.
Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
Given 4/6 x > 5/6 y therefore x > 5/4 y
Marty’s Pizza must have been more than a quarter larger than Luis’. The kid is exactly right. And the teacher is not flexible enough to engage outside their expectations for how the question was supposed to be answered.
Freshparsnip@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
I’m pretty sure the kid’s answer was how it was supposed to be answered
Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 3 weeks ago
Honestly I suspect the question was phrased poorly. It should have simply said “who ate more pizza” not stated who ate more and request to explain how
chatokun@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Now we know why teacher isn’t teaching math, but they should definitely not be teaching reasonableness either.
waspentalive@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Teachers that don’t accept an unexpected but true answer are not teaching. The test taker had a correct take, one of the pizzas could be bigger than the other. It was not specified in the question. I am so glad I am out of school
djehuti@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
This answer shouldn’t have been unexpected, given that it’s the correct answer.
waspentalive@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The test key has the expected answer, which may even be wrong. If the test taker responds with something else, even if it solves the problem, it is not the expected answer. It’s stupid.
RubberElectrons@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It really seemed like my fellow students lost their interest in math as we went through the grades here in the US.
I still remember a kid in 2nd grade who learned how Roman numerals worked because they were interesting. By grade 6, actively detested math.
Curious.
Soulg@ani.social 3 weeks ago
Kid should’ve gotten half credit at the very least.
A_Chilean_Cyborg@feddit.cl 3 weeks ago
i can’t fathom this being real, most probably this was made for karma farming or something.
edgesmash@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Teachers like this exist. One of my kids had an elementary school teacher like this. Two examples:
- The math assignment was about currency denominations; what coins and bills you need to make up $7.42, for example. My kid answered using $2 bills (uncommon in the US but still printed), as we have them at home. Teacher marked the answer wrong because teacher didn’t mention $2 bills in class.
- The writing assignment was to rewrite the Snow White story from the perspective of another character. My kid, having read a bunch of those “twisted tales” and recently fallen in love with “Wicked”, wrote from the evil queen’s perspective and made her a sympathetic character. Teacher marked her down for “changing the story” without acknowledging my kid’s creativity. Teacher did not back down when we confronted her on this during our parent teacher conference.
(FWIW, in both cases we reassured our kid that they did great in both cases, and that we were proud of them.)
Plesiohedron@lemmy.cafe 3 weeks ago
Teacher : draw a triangle with sides of length 1 inch, 2 inches and 3 inches
Kid : but you can’t do that. You get a 3 inch line. Other students proceed to draw skinny triangles.
Teacher : you’re wrong Kid. Everybody else can do it, what’s your problem?
True story.
camelbeard@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Also what teacher uses a green felt tip pen?
TheLowestStone@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
This brings back memories of when I realized that I was smarter than most of my teachers.
leadore@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
This is bizarre. The info provided in the question was that Marty ate more than Luis, the question was how would that be possible given that Mario ate 4/6 of his while Luis ate 5/6 of his. The answer the kid wrote (Marty’s pizza was bigger than Luis’) is the only possible correct answer.
The grader is asserting that the information given in the question was wrong and that “actually it was Luis who ate more pizza”–even though it stated as a premise that “Marty ate more”. How are you supposed to give a correct answer on a test if you are expected to accept one premise (proportion of pizzas eaten) while disregarding another premise (Marty ate more than Luis)? How do you decide which part to disregard? Would they have accepted the answer, “Luis actually only ate 3/6 of his pizza, not 5/6)”? Wouldn’t that be just as valid an answer as “Marty actually didn’t eat more than Luis”?
Benchamoneh@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Agree, this question is such hot shit that I can’t imagine it popping up in any real world maths test
TheKingBee@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The question is good, how given one smaller and one larger fraction could the person eating a smaller percent still have eaten more total pizza. That’s a fun brain puzzle.
The problem is the teacher.
leadore@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
And by gaslighting the kids, they’re teaching them not to trust their own ability to reason, crushing their critical thinking skills. It sets them up to submit to authoritarianism and go along with obvious lies instead of trusting their own senses and questioning authority.
Mniot@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
The title of this post is disappointing. The given answer is sound and it seems safe to assume it was arrived at by thinking mathematically.
beejboytyson@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Right? He’s rationally explaining how that was possible given the question of “how” it is possible. In my opinion that question was written poorly.
vala@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
“This is not possible because…”
This kid is never going to trust teachers again.
He was right.
leds@feddit.dk 3 weeks ago
Valuable lesson learned, trust yourself instead of authority ( I hope at least that was it and not start of self doubting ever after)
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
This kid is never going to trust teachers again.
If one bad response is enough to turn you off from anyone else teaching you anything ever, then you’re carrying some enormous trauma that has nothing to do with a single math question.
If one bad response is enough to open your eyes to the fallibility of individuals and lead you to think more deeply about where you get your information and how you evaluate the correctness of a response, then you’re going to go far and develop a much deeper understanding of the world.
whome@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
But those things stick. I did a geography test 35 years ago and wrote Canada instead of Kanada wich which is the correct spelling in German. In the eyes of my teacher I answered the question wrong and didn’t get the point, but I also got a point deducted because I did a spelling error. I didn’t lose trust in teachers or society in general, but this still nags me. :)
SereneSadie@lemmy.myserv.one 3 weeks ago
You are massively not comprehending how a child thinks.
Excrubulent@slrpnk.net 3 weeks ago
Some real “steel is heavier than feathers” energy coming off this teacher.
sandflavoured@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
I suspect many commenters are missing the point, the student’s response can only be the correct and expected answer to this question. Teacher has it wrong.
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Math education in the empire is TERRIBLE. There is no actual math taught. At best it’s applied analogies. The teachers have never taken any advanced math so they don’t even know what they’re not teaching. The goals (eg. calculus) are completely worthless. The entire system is stuck in the 1700s. It’s a complete failure. This image is just the tiniest tip of the iceberg.
kamen@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Commendable for the kid to be thinking outside of the box, and a bit shitty of the teacher for not giving them maybe half a point (because it’s a correct answer, but not the correct/expected answer). The test maker is also to blame - they should’ve taken care to eliminate all ambiguity - it’s a math test after all.
ICastFist@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
Ah, a teacher that does not comprehend the barometer
Two other right answers:
- Luis’ pizza is at least <whatever is the correct fraction> smaller than Marty’s (which is basically the same answer as the kid’s)
- Marty ate someone else’s pizza besides his own
And, for funsies:
- Luis’ pizza is 50% crust, so it doesn’t fully count as pizza
- Luis doesn’t like pizza and actually fed the dog while nobody was looking
- Marty is many years older than Luis, therefore he has eaten many years’ worth of pizza ahead of Luis
neon_nova@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
I can’t find it now and I do not think it really applies here. But someone stated that being high IQ could lead to academic problems as the high IQ learner would understand or see things that the professor could not causing the professor to mark it as incorrect.
I guess this is the idiocracy version of it.
Enkrod@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
So…
(4/6)m >= (5/6)l m >= (5/4)l
Which means Marty’s pizza is one and a quarter the size of Luis’ pizza. We can comfortably just compare the area, since we can assume a flat disk with equal height for a pizza.
Assuming Luis’ pizza is a Domino’s Classic size of 25cm that’s an area of:
(25cm / 2)² * π = (625cm² / 4) * π = 490.874cm²So Marty’s pizza should be at least 490.874cm² * 1.25 = 613.5925cm² for 4/6 of his to be greater or equal of 5/6 of Luis’, so:
sqrt(613.5925cm² / π) * 2 = 13,975426964cm * 2 = 27,950853929cmSince Marty’s pizza is equal or greater, let’s go with 28cm diameter… which happens to match exactly a Domino’s Medium size.
That’s a very realistic scenario and the teacher is an absolute idiot for not understanding.
ObviouslyNotBanana@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
There’s nothing wrong with the answer.
iAvicenna@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
lol this is actually a golden answer and that is why we need better teachers
Binturong@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
it’s fairly clear there are two pizzas, but as to ‘how’ someone eats more than someone else… this is not really a simple math question, there are too many unknown variables. Maybe one has Bulemia, maybe one of them is 6’9" and has a much bigger appetite. Maybe one of the people has a congenital deformity resulting in two mouths… This question is not a math question, it’s an exercise in creativity.
fiddledeedee@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
that kid passes my class with honors
the teacher is a moron
TomasEkeli@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
Marty’s pizza is larger. 4/6ths of a 3kg pizza is more than 5/6ths of a 1kg pizza
Gorge@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
In my experience this is how it feels to communicate as an autistic person
plasticbuddha@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The statement and question make perfect sense. The kid has the only “reasonable” answer.
driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br 3 weeks ago
I have an argument like that in my calculus 1 class in college, it was an optimization problem but the professor never said that the optimization variable was a constant, so you couldn’t differentiate it to zero and do the normal process that you typically do. So I just wrote that given that the perimeter wasn’t a constant the area to optimize goes to infinite Givin x -> inf; y -> 0, without loss of generality. He marked me zero we discussed about it and I said that I don’t care because I’m going to get a 10 next test if he didn’t fucked up the question. At the next exam I made some stupid error but he still gave 9/10 for the overall class because he came to accept that he wrote the question wrong and I was the only in the class actually caring and giving the class some dedication.
Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
When I was in elementary, my teacher said that “Lutetia” was how the Romans called the city of Liege. As an avid reader of Asterix comics, I knew this isn’t true and corrected her and said it was the Roman name of Paris. She insisted that it is Liege. Anyway, the next day, she came back to class and said that she looked it up and that I was indeed correct and Lutetia referred to Paris and gave me a chocolate bar.
remon@ani.social 3 weeks ago
In elementary school our teacher asked us to spell the current year with roman numerals, so I worked out “MCMXCVIII”, which I was quite proud of. Instead the teacher came back at me quite snarky and said it’s much easier to do “IIMM”, just substract 2 from 2000, duh!
It was only years later when I accidently learned that he was indeed full of shit and I was right all along.
Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
For anyone wondering why this is wrong, there are two reasons:
The roman numeral system only traditionally contains subtractions from the next higher five- and tenfold symbol. So you can subtract I from V and X, X from L and C, C from D and M
The subtractions only generally allowed one symbol to be subtracted, with a few notable exceptions like XIIX for 18 and XXIIX for 28
Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
It would’ve been easier to pretend it was 2000 and just write MM
Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I had a HS teacher say the the 2nd to 5th richest people were the Walton(of Walmart) family heirs. I knew this wasn’t right because at the time, Steve Balmer(of Microsoft) was the 5th or something. I printed out the Forbe list and brought it in. The teacher coped by saying that if you combined the Walton wealth, it would rank that high. He was a POS teacher for more significant reasons than that though.
SARGE@startrek.website 3 weeks ago
I once got in trouble with my math teacher for saying “well if we’re just making things up, then sure [I cheated on a math test while sitting in the front of class where the teacher can see but I was using some kind of hidden code on my t-shirt that was a bunch of Shakespearean insults] . But what about all that Crack you were doing in your car this morning?”
Apparently my "making things up"was a slightly more serious than his. I stand by it. If we’re making shit up, we’re making shit up.
For the record, this geometry teacher was convinced I was cheating in class because I didn’t do homework. Homework was 5% of the final grade for the year according to his syllabus, I hated homework, so I figured as long as I didn’t suck at the rest of the class, I could do 0 homework and pass. I was right, passed with a 94%
squaresinger@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
In my country, the written final exams include a Q&A section in the beginning of the test, where the teacher and the headmaster are present, and where they present the tasks and students are allowed to ask questions. After that section, the headmaster leaves and students and teachers aren’t allowed to talk for the rest of the test.
I noticed a missing specification in one of the tasks. It was a 3D geometry task, and it was missing one angle, thus allowing for infinite correct results. During the Q&A section I asked about that, and my teacher looked sternly past me to the end of the room and said “I am sure the specifications are correct”. If there was an actual error in the specifications, the whole test would have been voided and would have to be repeated at a later date, for all the students attending.
As soon as the headmaster was out of the room, he came to me and asked where he made the mistake. He then wrote a fitting spec on the whiteboard.
I liked that guy. He was a good teacher.
Jankatarch@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I always knew someone else knew about the series!
Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
Asterix was pretty popular in the 90s Central Europe. The movies were in theaters, the older ones got prime time slots on TV, the comics were in every book store’s kids section.
tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
An animated miniseries came out this year too
en.wikipedia.org/…/Asterix_and_Obelix%253A_The_Bi…
tomi000@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
What do you mean someone else? Who doesnt?
sigezayaq@startrek.website 3 weeks ago
haha, I also got some points in school for knowing that Lutetia is Paris, which I also found out by reading Asterix
thedarkfly@feddit.nl 3 weeks ago
Dang, in which country are you talking about Liège in elementary school?
Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
Germany. IIRC the topic was Romans, not Liege specifically.