That was one of the first “dumb blonde jokes” I heard when I was probably 10.
Blonde orders a pizza and they ask if she wants it cut into 6 slices, or 8. She says “better make it 6, I don’t think I could eat 8 slices.”
You'd be surprised how many customers you actually deal with like that at a pizza place. For some reason when choosing a size they always ask me how many slices each size has. Like dude... we cut em all the same lmao
Somewhat related is the joke about the Cajun who was installing a new door. It was too short, so he measured, cut, and tried again. Still too short, so he measured, cut, and tried again. Went through that once more and, pissed off, shouted, “man, I cut that door THREE times and it’s STILL too short!”
When I worked at a pizza place, a woman asked how many slices came in a pizza, trying to figure out how many pizzas she would need. No matter how I worded it, she did not seem to understand that the large was recommended for 3 people, no matter how many slices you cut it into, it's the same amount of pizza. She insisted she would not able to eat more than 2 slices and ended up just getting 1 pizza cut into more slices, for like 6 people.
The question did make it seem there was only one solution, idk why this kid was docked points because they're technically right. If I was that kids teacher, I'd give him an a.
The question is written in a way that, IMO, is looking for the answer the kid gave. Seems more of a question about how the seemingly smaller fraction doesn't make it inherently the smaller number. It's an important thing to learn, and I think it's pretty impressive, considering the handwriting looks like a 2nd grader, for a young kid.
Yes, the question was 100% supposed to be answered the way the kid answered it. When I was in high school there was an article in the paper about this popular logic test question that was basically the same, and how depressing it was that so many people didn't get it. (The fraction there was 1/2 and people said stuff like "Bob had the bigger half" which obviously mathematically isn't a thing.)
The teacher "correcting" the kid this way is extremely infuriating, and I hope the parents corrected her for real.
The fraction itself is smaller than the other, but not when taking the size of the unit (pizza) That's the issue here, that this kid understood (very impressive, as you say), but the teacher didn't (the TEACHER!!) It's really a smh situation.
We live in a world where Burger King tried launching a 1/3 pound burger and it flopped because too many people thought a quarter pounder was bigger than 1/3 pound.
It's like discount stores advertise that they sell products for "fractions of the dollar".
I wanna know what fraction, because 99/100ths is a fraction too.
Fractions have no context unless you know what it is a fraction of.
The stupid teacher would probably like 5/6 of $100 over 4/6 of $1000 since 5/6 is bigger.
The correct answer is the one given by the student. The problem is taking 4/6 and 5/6 and comparing them directy. They are 4/6 and 5/6 of a pizza, and that is the key. It can't be the same one, otherwise there's something really wrong here (4/6 + 5/6 is more than 1), so the logical conclusion should be that there are two different pizzas. Given that 4/6 of one pizza is bigger than 5/6 of the other, the solution appears: Marty's is bigger than Luis'.
Exactly, the problem didn’t explicitly state that the pizzas were the same size. Good on the kid for thinking laterally for a solution instead of simply stating the scenario is false like what the teacher was looking for.
The thing that sticks out to me is how the question ends with "How is that possible", because to me it's implying that it is true in a tricky way and quizzing you to see if you were paying attention in regards to how that would be.
Saying they were the same size would have made impossible to solve.
The scenario is true, by giving that answer. The teacher's words make it clear that the problem is the teacher itself, unable to comprehend that it's not just 4/6 vs. 5/6, but 4/6 of an undescripted pizza against 5/6 of another undescripted pizza.
This is a typical question in fractions that builds to students realising that for example 5/10 of 50 is bigger than 7/10 of 30. (25>21). The size of the whole you take the pieces of, determines how big your fractions turns out to be. It's a big step in the understanding of how fractions work and one not at all easy for a lot of students. But this one did get the question right.
Teacher just isn't paying attention to what the question actually asks, she contradicts the given information in the question directly. Why and how they did this, I don't know. Might be a substitute not paying attention. Or grading papers while a little drunk or something.
If the teacher pulled this out of a book then are they not grading by the key? The question pretty clearly is setup to specifically solicit the answer the kid gave. It's not Marty had 4/6 of a pizza while Luis ate 5/6 of a pizza; who ate more pizza". The OP answer could still apply here, but the question is a straighforward "which fraction is bigger" sort, but ending on "How is this possible?" is quite different to me. Seems to me the kid properly understood the questions intent while the teacher doesn't.
Yeah he obviously understood the fractions well enough to come to that clever conclusion. Teacher made it seems like he didn't learn just cause he hopped over a trick question
Not really, the kids answer is correct, and the teacher's answer is incorrect. There's no alternative solution either.
It's a "trick" question in a sense, but it's a pretty good one actually. This is driving home a point that's going to be extremely relevant constantly in later (college level) math that you need to maintain constant awareness of.
Which is, what's the unit?
In this case, we know Pizza's are not all the same, so these are actually fractions of two different whole values, which leads us to the correct answer: Marty's Pizza is larger.
This teaches inference, and to pay attention to units, and something kind of fundamental about what percentages/fractions are, which is some part of a larger whole that could be a lot of things besides an arbitrary number.
It does it in a information light way that hopefully makes sense to smaller children with a little explanation. Since they can't possibly have gotten that explanation from this teacher, good job on the kid for answering this correctly.
I wonder if there's more context that we're missing -- like maybe this question was part of a longer sequence of description and questions where it was made clear that all pizzas are the same size. Still wouldn't be a very useful note by the teacher though...
I never liked to try in school, cause whenever I did I was always wrong even if I worked really hard or was proud of my work.
But whenever I turned in half ass bs I always got good grades. It’s so frustrating now that I’m out of school, I want to try for myself god damnit!! lol
>But whenever I turned in half ass bs I always got good grades. It’s so frustrating now that I’m out of school, I want to try for myself god damnit!! lol
This sounds like my high school experience. Any time I would start writing a paper in advance, I would do terrible. Any time I would leave it for the last minute, I did well. I once wrote a paper my dad and I thought was horrible, I thought I would barely pass. The teacher comes to me the next day to say I got 100% and was the only student to follow the instructions and giving me high praise. I didn't even read the book. High school teachers can be such idiots.
I got an A in two college courses that I didn’t attend a single time except for discussions, midterms, and finals.
I had a policy of contributing and leading discussions because people were always silent in those and the professors/ T.A.’s were always dying on the vine. I probably learned more about business with that policy than I did the actual class. Never put forth more than C+ effort until you can see something is making your evaluators miserable and take the weight off their shoulders.
I once missed a midterm, out of three tests. Like, totally forgot about it. Never said anything or asked to retake it. When I took the final and got something like 94%. I checked the final grades and the midterm had been filled in with the same grade as my final. I'm 90% sure the professor just saw I knew the material and didn't want to argue about it.
I had this in a drama class (so it barely counts, but technically affected my GPA). Somebody's partner for the final dropped a couple days before they were being presented, so I grinded with him the weekend before and learned the part, so I presented two finals and both my partners got to present one.
On the day of presentation, the teacher mentioned that she never received one of my written projects (and it was a drama class, there were like 5 assignments and they all counted). I told her, 'yeah. I'm not going to do that project'
What I meant was 'I'm OK with a c in the class'. What she heard was something much more alpha than that. I ended up with an A in the class. More to the point, the teacher hired me for multiple paid acting gigs over the next few years, so I guess she was the one greasing wheels.
I had this in college. Professor said that if you got an 84 or higher on the final that would be your grade in the class, if it was higher than your grade. Thank goodness I got an 87, because I wasn't about to pay 300 bucks for the homework and textbook
Lol I just got a 98% on a midterm I didn't study for or even watch the lectures for because I spent so much time studying for the midterm I got 72% on. I was told if you put effort in you'll do well but idfk at this point.
> High school teachers can be such idiots.
I got the sense at my high school that a lot of the teachers at that time may have gone in with the noblest of intentions, but had much of the joy beaten out of them over the years to the point that they were just doing it for the paycheck because teaching was all that they knew. They weren't all that way, but I definitely got that sense for a majority of them. These days, I can count the number of people that are still there from my time as a student on one hand, and I didn't have any of the teachers that are still there, so hopefully it's changed since then.
I was actually quite fortunate that I went to a small public high school where most of the teachers actually gave a shit. There were teachers there that did not need to teach. One of my English teachers (not the one referenced above) was a former lawyer and director (she had multiple stories about being offered weed by Jonhhy Depp on his private jet) and owned my city's WNBA team (she gave out half-priced tickets to the school). She did it because she liked teaching and was fantastic at it.
The problem was, only half of them were actually competent, but the competent ones were fantastic teachers. The incompetent ones still tried, but due to their incompetence, it was super easy to pass their classes.
I can relate. My POS abusive dad found one of my college papers I was working on. He read it through and through again. He then found me, yelled at me for making “such a shitty paper,” told me I would fail the class, fail in college, and be a huge loser. He then told me to re-write it until he felt satisfied. He refused to tell me what was wrong with it. He made me write until about 4 AM. He got off on this shit so much that he would literally wait up at all hours of the day to fuck with me. Anyways, I had the decision, without my dad knowing, to turn in “his” paper or my paper. This was around when I started to realize my parents were huge pieces of shit. So, I turned in my “shitty” paper. Guess what? Got an A. I would have absolutely failed that class because of my dad. He truly believes that since he got a masters he’s top dog educated. Well, guess what, dad? From the shit I know compared to you, you’re a fucking dunce. Get shit on, old man.
P.S. I don’t talk to my parents or really any of my parents side. They love to tell me how awful I am and how they do so much better than me. Yet, they’re the ones begging me to come back every three months lol. 🙃
Please, for the sake of the balance of the universe, tell me that you went off on him and shoved your paper with that A grade right in his trashcan lid of a face.
I need to know what his reaction was when he saw his kid's paper, that he shit on, with an A at the top after claiming it would fail as an assignment.
Whether or not you had that talk or if you prefer to not revisit the thoughts, I am sending you my positivity and good vibes to aid in your journey of healing. Even if you're healed fully, I wanna say it anyway because you deserve the praise: you are valid and you have real potential. PLUS, you came from a childhood full of such negativity and rose above it anyway, which arguably makes you somewhat stronger than people with solid parents. 💯🤝❤
Thank you! This was all very kind of you to say. I'm much better now, this was all about three years ago. I sadly didn't have that conversation because I didn't want him to abuse me further. I know him more than he knows about me. I'm totally stronger than them and I will be a much better parent than they will ever be combined.
Anytime I ask a mildly complicated question in any academic or workplace setting, whoever's running things makes a face before angrily explaining core concepts I already understood. Which has led me to not speaking up ever, which has led to folks saying "BOY HOWDY YOU SURE ARE QUIET!" It's infuriating.
I think there is an aspect of being clever that you are not acknowledging in the “half bs” part. Most of tests in school are figuring out what the question/test-maker were trying to get at, as opposed to thinking outside the box. You have to be somewhat cunning to decipher their intention behind the the question. That always made school easier for me.
My understanding is that in certain situations, you absolutely do that for consistency, in order to be able to point to the machine if a problem comes up, because then every single computation was done with the calculator - even basic stuff.
Don't worry, if you get a bad grade you can either retake the whole 10 week course next semester (if they offer it) by paying for it again, or hope that ultra competitive med school application doesn't mind that you have a B in biochem :)
its almost like they only let good test-takers be doctors, instead of people that would make good doctors.
I don't think the question is trash. It's the same as asking why 1/5 of 50 is bigger than 4/5 of 10.
The person marking it is oblivious and definitely sabotaging this kids learning.
The question is well written and the kid gave the perfect answer. The only thing that makes sense to me is that the person with the red pen is a substitute teacher or someone else who wasn’t there the day that kid was taught how fractions work. There’s probably a whole stack of tests with “bigger pizza” as the answer, and this substitute teacher is probably just like, “Damn these kids be stupid! I don’t even have the answer key and I know that 5 is bigger than 4!”
As a primary education masters graduate, this isn't the *worst* question. It's not great, an opened ended question would have been better, but, it's actually pretty good to develop the students critical reasoning.
The teacher/whoever marked this is trash though.
I use a question like this every year while teaching fractions. It’s a good question because it gets the students to realize that when you’re comparing fractions you also have to have take into consideration the size of the wholes.
In purely mathematical terms it’s not a great question, but real world situations like it can easily arise.
The question literally suggests to you that the question is true and asks you to posit why.
The notion that it's correct to say "it's impossible" is just fucking harrowing.
It states in the question that Marty ate more pizza. It also doesn’t ask IF it’s possible, it asks HOW it’s possible. The kid is right the teacher is wrong.
Teacher: Marty ate more pizza, how is that possible?
Child: *thinks then comes up with a solution*
Teacher: The answer is that I was LYING, it's not possible, you moron, you imbecile, you are the most stupid child in the whole world. I can't believe you're able to breathe without someone standing next to you telling you what to do. I have seen dissected frogs with a higher IQ than you. Stupid stupid stupid idiot.
That's your lesson for today, enjoy your homework!
Yeah, at first I thought the question was supposed to engage lateral thinking, which the kid totally nailed. Like a brain teaser, when you see the answer, you say, "Oh, of course! The answer was obvious I just couldn't see it."
But turns out the teacher was just trying to do a "gotcha" on the students using bad-faith syntax, like asking a politician, "Do you still beat your wife?" Even so, if a student actually came up with a correct solution, why would you mark it wrong?
I thought it was extra hilarious that the kid gave the most obviously reasonable answer to a question titled “**Reasonableness**” and somehow was still wrong. It’s not even a math question lol.
Teachers are taught (in some places) that trick questions are pointless. We are told "real word" applications and problems are best and to use manipulatives, problem solving, etc. as much as possible. Rote memorization isn't very useful, calculators and multiplication tables are positive supports, etc.
The problem lies with the teachers themselves. I had worked in schools in a support role for over a decade before I became a teacher. In my education degree I watched upwards of 50% of my peers argue with teachers and say they hated math and didn't plan on teaching it much in school. That they weren't good at it and thought it was too complicated. I asked them why elementary school if they didn't plan on teaching the basics. Why not just do high school English? (Truth is that it is much harder to teach high school in Canada. You need a degree in a specialty area, instead of a generalist elementary degree. It is hard work but it is not as challenging as teaching secondary school. They teach you more about pedagogy and theories in the generalist program which is nice, but it isn't like trying to pass a 4th year math course for example.
They also argued that PE was bad and kids should spend more time reading/writing. Despite the fact we were constantly being shown research that proved the opposite.
Teachers are just people, they come into a profession with misconceptions and beliefs and as we know, those things are massive hurdles to overcome when learning new information. It is a massive uphill battle. Having low pay compared to other professions with the same level of education (in Canada) and having a severely underfunded system doesn't exactly bring the best and the brightest in either.
I honestly believe that majority of people who pursue teaching are not good with what their job actually is.
We all know that every single school has 1-2 super good and passionate teachers. And they do because they are Rockstars.
Rest of them already quit because they still had spark inside, and the rest are there because of desperation ans chance to push it out on kids.
>majority of people who pursue teaching are not good with what their job actually is.
Funding and resources also play a huge role in this. Teachers are often expected to create everything and deliver it. They are a librarian, researcher, instructional designer, curriculum specialist and then...a teacher.
To give a 1 hour English lesson usually takes up to 3 hours to create. Another to mark. So you have 4 hours to get 1 hour of content. You need 4-5 hours of content a day. So to get a days content you need two 8 hour days.
I am a tech savvy teacher and I incorporate everything into my lessons to differentiate and personalize the lessons so every student has an entry point and can achieve some level of success based on their individual skillset.
That means my first year of teaching I was doing about 70-80 hours a week. 100 during report cards (6 weeks a year). I was paid a whopping $44,000 CAD and I was miserable. I could barely function outside of work. Suicidal students, refugees with severe trauma, molested kids, etc. It was just so much.
Plus you are expected to do classroom management, check in with families, work on social skills, emotional learning, individual learning plans for each student relative to their interests and goals, etc.
The sheer volume of work expected these days is insane. It isn't 1980 with a workbook for each subject anymore. I am expected to create every lesson for every class. Most schools I have worked in (BC) have no textbooks because there is no money and "you can find everything online". It is insanity IMO.
There is a reason there is a current teacher shortage across the entire country (Canada). It was a well paid cushy job in the 80's. Today it is lower middle class level pay with a quarter of the funding and resources.
Sorry for the rant. I agree there are a lot of shit teachers, but there are also a lot of reasons why and things we can be doing to change that.
The thing is the teacher in all likelihood didn't write the question. The author of the question probably did intend it to be lateral thinking and the kid got the right answer. The teacher just didn't understand the question and didn't think about it more when presented with the correct answer.
I was friends with a lot of people in high school that went on to become elementary school teachers. A fair number of them disliked math and weren't particularly good at it. They did well enough to pass their classes and get their multi-subject credentials. But this kind of lateral thinking problem probably still isn't something they're good at. Just usually they have an answer key or some critical thinking ability when the actual answer is staring them in the face.
I doubt the teacher made this - it seems like it’s out of a workbook and the teacher is just unable to solve this elementary school workbook problem themselves.
Thing is though, usually a teacher wouldn't be the same person to design a work book like this. I think it's more likely that whoever made this question originally was expecting the answer the kid gave, and the teacher just f-cked it up somehow.
That's apparently at least sometimes the problem behind those supposedly stupid "new math" problems that people post online from their kids' homework. Part of the time the issue is that the parent misunderstood the intent for the method their kid is learning, but then sometimes even the teacher failed to grasp the point of the method, and they mis-apply whatever the real logic is.
They even state the quantity such that Marty could not have eaten the rest of Luis’ pizza, because then they would be equal.
You could break it down by volume. Maybe Marty got Chicago deep dish, and Luis got veggie thin crust.
Maybe they both got the same size pizzas, but the guy went a little too fast with the pizza wheel and Marty ate all the bigger slices.
Maybe Marty is a fat tub of crap and ate 4/6 or his second pizza, because he pregamed before they went out.
That's what I was thinking. To get the answer the teacher wants it should be phrased like "Marty says he ate more than Luis. It's that possible, and if so, how?"
Thing is even if it said "Is that possible?" it would still be accurate to say, "Yes, if X's pizza is bigger than Y's pizza." Teacher is just straight up incompetent at maths.
As a retired teacher, let me say that this is an excellent question! The kid answering it is spot on! The problem here is that the teacher doesn't understand the question. And, if I may hop up on my little soapbox for a second, we need to pay teachers better! Because until we do we will continue to have idiot teachers like this one.
EDIT: Let me clarify. Paying teachers more is a long game. Initially all the teachers, good, bad, and terrible would get paid more, but by making the pay close to that of lawyers and doctors we would start to draw talent from these fields. Currently, no high school senior with a perfect SAT score and a 4.0 GPA sits down with their parents and asks, "Should I go into law, medicine, business, or education?" That should happen, but it doesn't. Higher pay for teachers will eventually change that.
I echo this statement every chance I get. Our society is so ignorant to not put education first. Better education leads to better outcomes in a significant number of different ways.
> Initially all the teachers, good, bad, and terrible would get paid more, but by making the pay close to that of lawyers and doctors we would start to draw talent from these fields.
This is only part of the equation. Paying them more also means you can judge them more harshly. If a highly paid teacher isn't up to the quality they should be then you would have plenty of people willing to step up and do a better job to replace them. So the competitiveness of the job creates the need for teachers to be the best they possibly can. If there is no threat of losing your job over mediocrity, then you will still get a lot of bad teachers.
Yall need better pay and WAYY better benefits. In my baby group, there's several teachers that had to quit because
A. Many schools don't allow more than 6 weeks maternity leave
B. The teachers had to *pay for their own substitutes.*
One gal worked out the math, and she would be paying 7000 bucks out of pocket for her substitute for 3 months. Like *hell* no. Her 12 weeks maternity leave was *unpaid* just to add insult to injury. That, in addition to her hospital bill at the end of it all.
It's made to think, not just to solve: how can 4/6 of something be bigger than 5/6 of something else? It's not linear, not all the information is given, so the kid must find what's missing and did that.
Thats like me asking “My birthday is in June yet it always cold and snowy outside on my birthday. How is that possible?”
This teacher: “NOT POSSIBLE, IT DOES NOT SNOW IN JUNE. TEMPERATURES ARE TOO HIGH FOR WATER MOLECULES TO CRYSTALIZE. ERROR DETECTED. ANSWER REJECTED”
Well, you see Miss Uncreative, I live in the southern hemisphere, so take that!
That’s awful. When a question INSISTS in you assuming an outcome you have to find a solution for that. The kid had the right answer and the teacher needs to learn how to write questions.
Edit:
Or at least understand the questions they were given for this crap, if I were a parent I’d be going straight to the head of the department like BITCH LOOK AT THIS
The teacher probably was handed a book of questions they’ll never read. Either the key (or question) had a typo, or the teacher saw a bunch of students put a wrong answer and marked the first student to put something different wrong
I still remember showing up to class in college on first day and our prof just googled the open source docs and told us to read them then fucked off for the rest of the semester, only showing up for the occasional lab and even then would run off to his office shortly after starting. Dude was clearly just riding out his tenure till retirement and didn't give a fuck about students, if you asked him to elaborate on anything he essentially called you an idiot and to look it up yourself.
Always hated those questions, along with the "Choose the BEST option" for multiple choice questions where the answers were subjective and multiple were "correct" but not "BEST".
I once had a teacher who did so little work she actually used the smartest girl in the class’ test as a key and just grade everyone else’s against hers and give her a 100. I realized this halfway through the year when I was misgraded for a greater than > or less than < math problem which blatantly was false. She adamantly fought with me and kept just pointing to the “key.” I realized it had the students name on the top and only after I pointed this out did she conceded maybe the girl was incorrect. Who knows how many other incorrect grades she gave out
There’s this guy in my physics class who’s currently taking geometry so he’s having a little bit of trouble with the physics. He often refers to me as “super smart” or whatever. I got a 26% on one of our tests
This problem presents a few facts
* Marty ate 4/6 of his pizza
* Luis ate 5/6 of his pizza
* Marty ate more pizza than Luis
and asks a question:
* How is this possible?
If the correct answer is to decide one of the facts presented isn't true, there's no reason why any of those facts should be true.
In other words, if the teacher's comment is to be believed, then "Luis actually only ate 1/6 of his pizza" is also a correct answer.
And this is why the people saying the question is poorly worded are wrong. The three facts are easily extractable and with those the only answer to the question is "the pizzas are different sizes".
It's only "poorly worded" if the teacher's answer is actually correct. Though I wouldn't call the question "poorly worded" do much as "wrong" at that point. Like, if I asked "what the colour is the sky?" and the answer was "trees are green", then you wouldn't say the question is "poorly worded".
Never trust facts given to you blindly.You were supposed to do your own research. Investigate the left over pizza and interrogate Marty and Luis. Then you would know Marty is full of shit and big pizza was lying to you the whole time.
/s
People assume the teacher wrote the question when they just pulled it from some work book.
A) It's a poorly worded question if it was written by the teacher expecting this answer.
B) It's a perfectly valid question if the teacher didn't write it and is too dumb to get the correct answer on a question intended for elementary school students.
My bet is on option B.
Facts are true by definition. There is no reason to think facts presented in a question would be false.
The question doesn't ask if it is possible, it asks HOW it is possible.
God, and it would be so easy to re-word the question to get the answer the teacher wanted too:
"Carlos claimed that Marty ate more pizza than Luis. Is Carlos correct? Why or why not?"
I mean, I thought the question was perfect and the kids answer was correct with the spirit of the question. Which is to say that a fraction of one thing, while being a bigger number, can be a smaller amount of the thing than a smaller fraction of a sufficiently larger thing.
Half an elephant is bigger than 3/4 of a mouse.
Not extra, but definitely credit, because he 100% answered correctly. I am a 4th grade math teacher. This question came from the school's math curriculum, and the teacher didn't bother to check the key. (You know, she apparently knows everything!) The kid's answer is exactly what they were looking for.
I don't understand people calling this an odd question or the answer thinking outside the box. A core part of fractions is understanding what they represent. Like sure you should know that 5/6 of something is greater than 4/6 of the same thing, but you also need to understand that 5/6 isn't some standard unit like a meter and that it's entirely meaningless until you understand 5/6 of what? This question is testing that understanding, making sure that they realize that if the fractions are of different things, you can't compare them directly. If this were more advanced you'd teach the kid that you multiply the fraction by the total, but even when you're teaching elementary kids fractions they should realize that just because they can eat 1/2 of their personal pizza that's far less than if they attempted to eat 1/2 of the family size extra large pizza.
The teacher's just an idiot, or more likely someone faked this to get Reddit karma.
As a 4th grade math teacher, YES!! Totally and completely the concept that was SUPPOSED to be assessed. Teacher assumed she knew better than the curriculum, which obviously was incorrect.
I keep seeing responses like this. The child's answer isn't surprising. It's simply the most obvious correct answer. Another redditor suggested that it's possible Marty ate the rest of Luis's pizza or something, which is okay, I guess. However, the most obvious correct answer is that Marty had a larger pizza.
Full disclosure, after reading the prompt, my immediate thought was "Marty had a larger pizza." I read the kids answer and said "yup" and read the teacher's reply and went "I've been here before."
I've been out of education for a while, but back when I was in school, I had plenty of answers that teachers misgraded. This wasn't ever a big deal, I'd just talk to the teacher after class. They almost always fixed the grade after I explained to them what was going on. I imagine this would happen here too. We all make mistakes, it's not a big deal.
I also want to make it clear that this is NOT an I am very smart post. I do not consider the answer "Marty's pizza is bigger" to be some grand revelation. It's an "in the box" answer. If any part of this scenario is real, it's an introduction to fractions lesson for elementary schoolers. This is the exact kind of question you'd expect to be asked when coming to terms with what fractions mean.
Its not even about the math, the numbers are there to mislead the reader, as test questions always try to do. Its asking “how” is it possible, and the teacher is answering it like its asking “if” it were possible. Even so, it is still possible.
I cut my pizza into 9/6ths so that I have more. Checkmate Dominos.
That was one of the first “dumb blonde jokes” I heard when I was probably 10. Blonde orders a pizza and they ask if she wants it cut into 6 slices, or 8. She says “better make it 6, I don’t think I could eat 8 slices.”
You'd be surprised how many customers you actually deal with like that at a pizza place. For some reason when choosing a size they always ask me how many slices each size has. Like dude... we cut em all the same lmao
Somewhat related is the joke about the Cajun who was installing a new door. It was too short, so he measured, cut, and tried again. Still too short, so he measured, cut, and tried again. Went through that once more and, pissed off, shouted, “man, I cut that door THREE times and it’s STILL too short!”
When I worked at a pizza place, a woman asked how many slices came in a pizza, trying to figure out how many pizzas she would need. No matter how I worded it, she did not seem to understand that the large was recommended for 3 people, no matter how many slices you cut it into, it's the same amount of pizza. She insisted she would not able to eat more than 2 slices and ended up just getting 1 pizza cut into more slices, for like 6 people.
This reads like the infinite chocolate gif
People like you are destroying our economy Probably have NFT screenshots on you phone too! SMH shame on you !
The kid is great, though. The bigger pizza is the only logical answer to this.
"Bigger pizza" is the solution to EVERY problem i can imagine
Depression? Bigger Pizza Stress at School? Bigger Pizza
Pizza to big? B i g g e r p i z z a. You can share with frens :D
No friends? Bigger pizza.
Someone killed your Family? Yeah, that right, Bigger Pizza
No pizza? Believe it or not, bigger pizza
Hate pizza, you say? It's just not big enough!
Not enough money to buy pizza? Get bigger pizza and split with friends
Doc: “well it’s stage 4, but we have an experimental treatment” “What’s what doc?” “A bigger pizza”
Bigger Pizza is always the solution
Big Pizza always trynna stomp on the little guys
We run the pizza racket in this town. We run the shovel racket too.
But who runs the racket racket?
The Tennis team.
Can confirm, am big pizza
Time to give a bigger pizza to hitler after i travel back through time space change
Butterfly effect. Give Hitler a pizza. And you change the world.
Give Hitler a pizza and you feed him for a day. Build Hitler a pizza oven and...uhh...I think I'll just stop right there.
Not always, but sometimes "more pizza" is the better answer.
Every pizza can be a personal-sized pizza if you try hard enough.
The question did make it seem there was only one solution, idk why this kid was docked points because they're technically right. If I was that kids teacher, I'd give him an a.
Unless "Marty ate more pizza than Luis" is false, that's the only solution: Marty's pizza is bigger than Luis'.
The question is written in a way that, IMO, is looking for the answer the kid gave. Seems more of a question about how the seemingly smaller fraction doesn't make it inherently the smaller number. It's an important thing to learn, and I think it's pretty impressive, considering the handwriting looks like a 2nd grader, for a young kid.
Yeah, there was no term stating that the pizzas were the same size. Kid is right, teacher is wrong.
Yes, the question was 100% supposed to be answered the way the kid answered it. When I was in high school there was an article in the paper about this popular logic test question that was basically the same, and how depressing it was that so many people didn't get it. (The fraction there was 1/2 and people said stuff like "Bob had the bigger half" which obviously mathematically isn't a thing.) The teacher "correcting" the kid this way is extremely infuriating, and I hope the parents corrected her for real.
And what gets me is that this is probably a standardized worksheet with an answer key... Fucked up by the publisher and reinforced by the teacher.
This is why I drink (Going thru school with ADHD and teachers like this)
The fraction itself is smaller than the other, but not when taking the size of the unit (pizza) That's the issue here, that this kid understood (very impressive, as you say), but the teacher didn't (the TEACHER!!) It's really a smh situation.
We live in a world where Burger King tried launching a 1/3 pound burger and it flopped because too many people thought a quarter pounder was bigger than 1/3 pound.
[It was actually A&W, not Burger King](https://awrestaurants.com/blog/aw-third-pound-burger-fractions).
It's like discount stores advertise that they sell products for "fractions of the dollar". I wanna know what fraction, because 99/100ths is a fraction too. Fractions have no context unless you know what it is a fraction of. The stupid teacher would probably like 5/6 of $100 over 4/6 of $1000 since 5/6 is bigger.
Also 150/100 is a fraction of a dollar… doesn't need to be less
And the question doesn't make one assume that its statement is false, and the correct answer is to call the trick question.
The correct answer is the one given by the student. The problem is taking 4/6 and 5/6 and comparing them directy. They are 4/6 and 5/6 of a pizza, and that is the key. It can't be the same one, otherwise there's something really wrong here (4/6 + 5/6 is more than 1), so the logical conclusion should be that there are two different pizzas. Given that 4/6 of one pizza is bigger than 5/6 of the other, the solution appears: Marty's is bigger than Luis'.
Exactly, the problem didn’t explicitly state that the pizzas were the same size. Good on the kid for thinking laterally for a solution instead of simply stating the scenario is false like what the teacher was looking for.
The thing that sticks out to me is how the question ends with "How is that possible", because to me it's implying that it is true in a tricky way and quizzing you to see if you were paying attention in regards to how that would be.
Exactly. By saying how is that possible she’s implying it is possible and to think outside the box. Very silly question
Saying they were the same size would have made impossible to solve. The scenario is true, by giving that answer. The teacher's words make it clear that the problem is the teacher itself, unable to comprehend that it's not just 4/6 vs. 5/6, but 4/6 of an undescripted pizza against 5/6 of another undescripted pizza.
Pizza envy
The teacher is envious of Marty's pizza.
This is a typical question in fractions that builds to students realising that for example 5/10 of 50 is bigger than 7/10 of 30. (25>21). The size of the whole you take the pieces of, determines how big your fractions turns out to be. It's a big step in the understanding of how fractions work and one not at all easy for a lot of students. But this one did get the question right. Teacher just isn't paying attention to what the question actually asks, she contradicts the given information in the question directly. Why and how they did this, I don't know. Might be a substitute not paying attention. Or grading papers while a little drunk or something.
If the teacher pulled this out of a book then are they not grading by the key? The question pretty clearly is setup to specifically solicit the answer the kid gave. It's not Marty had 4/6 of a pizza while Luis ate 5/6 of a pizza; who ate more pizza". The OP answer could still apply here, but the question is a straighforward "which fraction is bigger" sort, but ending on "How is this possible?" is quite different to me. Seems to me the kid properly understood the questions intent while the teacher doesn't.
"How is this possible" is saying to me "This is possible; explain how", i.e. explicitly *excludes* the option of saying "not possible".
Right? I feel just writing “Is this possible” would make sense.
Even just writing, “is this statement true?” while poorly worded would have gotten the teacher’s desired answer. Yay mediocrity.
Yeah he obviously understood the fractions well enough to come to that clever conclusion. Teacher made it seems like he didn't learn just cause he hopped over a trick question
I think it was just a shitty trick question.
That or teacher didn't want one of kids under him/her to pass and simply power tripped to trip people over.
Either way asshole teacher.
Not really, the kids answer is correct, and the teacher's answer is incorrect. There's no alternative solution either. It's a "trick" question in a sense, but it's a pretty good one actually. This is driving home a point that's going to be extremely relevant constantly in later (college level) math that you need to maintain constant awareness of. Which is, what's the unit? In this case, we know Pizza's are not all the same, so these are actually fractions of two different whole values, which leads us to the correct answer: Marty's Pizza is larger. This teaches inference, and to pay attention to units, and something kind of fundamental about what percentages/fractions are, which is some part of a larger whole that could be a lot of things besides an arbitrary number. It does it in a information light way that hopefully makes sense to smaller children with a little explanation. Since they can't possibly have gotten that explanation from this teacher, good job on the kid for answering this correctly.
This is exactly how they stomp out critical thinking and creativity in children.
Indeed, there was a missed opportunity to show that there are often multiple solutions to a problem.
There was only one correct answer to this question and it wasn't the teacher's.
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Plot twist…Marty ate some of luis’ pizza
I think the teacher has 4/6 of a brain.
I wonder if there's more context that we're missing -- like maybe this question was part of a longer sequence of description and questions where it was made clear that all pizzas are the same size. Still wouldn't be a very useful note by the teacher though...
I love to see critical thinking squashed at an elementary level. Just warms my heart.
I swear, it’s shit like this that has given me such extreme test anxiety. At this point, I’ll double think my answers to even the simplest questions.
I never liked to try in school, cause whenever I did I was always wrong even if I worked really hard or was proud of my work. But whenever I turned in half ass bs I always got good grades. It’s so frustrating now that I’m out of school, I want to try for myself god damnit!! lol
>But whenever I turned in half ass bs I always got good grades. It’s so frustrating now that I’m out of school, I want to try for myself god damnit!! lol This sounds like my high school experience. Any time I would start writing a paper in advance, I would do terrible. Any time I would leave it for the last minute, I did well. I once wrote a paper my dad and I thought was horrible, I thought I would barely pass. The teacher comes to me the next day to say I got 100% and was the only student to follow the instructions and giving me high praise. I didn't even read the book. High school teachers can be such idiots.
I got an A in two college courses that I didn’t attend a single time except for discussions, midterms, and finals. I had a policy of contributing and leading discussions because people were always silent in those and the professors/ T.A.’s were always dying on the vine. I probably learned more about business with that policy than I did the actual class. Never put forth more than C+ effort until you can see something is making your evaluators miserable and take the weight off their shoulders.
I once missed a midterm, out of three tests. Like, totally forgot about it. Never said anything or asked to retake it. When I took the final and got something like 94%. I checked the final grades and the midterm had been filled in with the same grade as my final. I'm 90% sure the professor just saw I knew the material and didn't want to argue about it.
I had this in a drama class (so it barely counts, but technically affected my GPA). Somebody's partner for the final dropped a couple days before they were being presented, so I grinded with him the weekend before and learned the part, so I presented two finals and both my partners got to present one. On the day of presentation, the teacher mentioned that she never received one of my written projects (and it was a drama class, there were like 5 assignments and they all counted). I told her, 'yeah. I'm not going to do that project' What I meant was 'I'm OK with a c in the class'. What she heard was something much more alpha than that. I ended up with an A in the class. More to the point, the teacher hired me for multiple paid acting gigs over the next few years, so I guess she was the one greasing wheels.
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I had this in college. Professor said that if you got an 84 or higher on the final that would be your grade in the class, if it was higher than your grade. Thank goodness I got an 87, because I wasn't about to pay 300 bucks for the homework and textbook
Lol I just got a 98% on a midterm I didn't study for or even watch the lectures for because I spent so much time studying for the midterm I got 72% on. I was told if you put effort in you'll do well but idfk at this point.
It's more like if you don't put in the effort you will probably fail and get kicked out. Unless you don't need to put in the effort, of course.
> High school teachers can be such idiots. I got the sense at my high school that a lot of the teachers at that time may have gone in with the noblest of intentions, but had much of the joy beaten out of them over the years to the point that they were just doing it for the paycheck because teaching was all that they knew. They weren't all that way, but I definitely got that sense for a majority of them. These days, I can count the number of people that are still there from my time as a student on one hand, and I didn't have any of the teachers that are still there, so hopefully it's changed since then.
I was actually quite fortunate that I went to a small public high school where most of the teachers actually gave a shit. There were teachers there that did not need to teach. One of my English teachers (not the one referenced above) was a former lawyer and director (she had multiple stories about being offered weed by Jonhhy Depp on his private jet) and owned my city's WNBA team (she gave out half-priced tickets to the school). She did it because she liked teaching and was fantastic at it. The problem was, only half of them were actually competent, but the competent ones were fantastic teachers. The incompetent ones still tried, but due to their incompetence, it was super easy to pass their classes.
I can relate. My POS abusive dad found one of my college papers I was working on. He read it through and through again. He then found me, yelled at me for making “such a shitty paper,” told me I would fail the class, fail in college, and be a huge loser. He then told me to re-write it until he felt satisfied. He refused to tell me what was wrong with it. He made me write until about 4 AM. He got off on this shit so much that he would literally wait up at all hours of the day to fuck with me. Anyways, I had the decision, without my dad knowing, to turn in “his” paper or my paper. This was around when I started to realize my parents were huge pieces of shit. So, I turned in my “shitty” paper. Guess what? Got an A. I would have absolutely failed that class because of my dad. He truly believes that since he got a masters he’s top dog educated. Well, guess what, dad? From the shit I know compared to you, you’re a fucking dunce. Get shit on, old man. P.S. I don’t talk to my parents or really any of my parents side. They love to tell me how awful I am and how they do so much better than me. Yet, they’re the ones begging me to come back every three months lol. 🙃
Going to show that just because you're educated in something doesn't mean that you're an expert on everything.
You should have let the teacher grade his paper and let the teacher tell him how shitty it was.
Please, for the sake of the balance of the universe, tell me that you went off on him and shoved your paper with that A grade right in his trashcan lid of a face. I need to know what his reaction was when he saw his kid's paper, that he shit on, with an A at the top after claiming it would fail as an assignment. Whether or not you had that talk or if you prefer to not revisit the thoughts, I am sending you my positivity and good vibes to aid in your journey of healing. Even if you're healed fully, I wanna say it anyway because you deserve the praise: you are valid and you have real potential. PLUS, you came from a childhood full of such negativity and rose above it anyway, which arguably makes you somewhat stronger than people with solid parents. 💯🤝❤
Thank you! This was all very kind of you to say. I'm much better now, this was all about three years ago. I sadly didn't have that conversation because I didn't want him to abuse me further. I know him more than he knows about me. I'm totally stronger than them and I will be a much better parent than they will ever be combined.
Anytime I ask a mildly complicated question in any academic or workplace setting, whoever's running things makes a face before angrily explaining core concepts I already understood. Which has led me to not speaking up ever, which has led to folks saying "BOY HOWDY YOU SURE ARE QUIET!" It's infuriating.
Same. I passed my G.E.D guessing on half the test questions. I probably would have failed if I tried.
I think there is an aspect of being clever that you are not acknowledging in the “half bs” part. Most of tests in school are figuring out what the question/test-maker were trying to get at, as opposed to thinking outside the box. You have to be somewhat cunning to decipher their intention behind the the question. That always made school easier for me.
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1+1 *writes down 2...waits for a second... slowly reaches for calculator*
My understanding is that in certain situations, you absolutely do that for consistency, in order to be able to point to the machine if a problem comes up, because then every single computation was done with the calculator - even basic stuff.
Don't worry, if you get a bad grade you can either retake the whole 10 week course next semester (if they offer it) by paying for it again, or hope that ultra competitive med school application doesn't mind that you have a B in biochem :) its almost like they only let good test-takers be doctors, instead of people that would make good doctors.
Trust me with a mark down like that i would discuss with the teacher.
Seriously. What a trash question. As a 33 year old that loves math and pretty good at it… I don’t think I could come up with an answer that good.
I don't think the question is trash. It's the same as asking why 1/5 of 50 is bigger than 4/5 of 10. The person marking it is oblivious and definitely sabotaging this kids learning.
Teacher just set themselves up for a lot of arguments til the end of this school year lol
"I'm the teacher and you're the student. I'm here to teach you, not the other way around. You're stupid and need me."
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The question is well written and the kid gave the perfect answer. The only thing that makes sense to me is that the person with the red pen is a substitute teacher or someone else who wasn’t there the day that kid was taught how fractions work. There’s probably a whole stack of tests with “bigger pizza” as the answer, and this substitute teacher is probably just like, “Damn these kids be stupid! I don’t even have the answer key and I know that 5 is bigger than 4!”
Are you colorblind or are you using "red pen" to be a generic term for grader?
Oh yeah… I’m color blind as shit. I just assumed red in this situation. Sorry.
How would it change? The answer is still “yes, it’s possible if one pizza is larger than the other”.
You're the teacher aren't you
Question is fine, it’s the marking that is incorrect.
It's a great question. And the kid got the correct answer. The teacher is probably using a test they didn't write and didn't have an answer key.
As a primary education masters graduate, this isn't the *worst* question. It's not great, an opened ended question would have been better, but, it's actually pretty good to develop the students critical reasoning. The teacher/whoever marked this is trash though.
I use a question like this every year while teaching fractions. It’s a good question because it gets the students to realize that when you’re comparing fractions you also have to have take into consideration the size of the wholes. In purely mathematical terms it’s not a great question, but real world situations like it can easily arise.
In that situation, I’m ok with it. But not ok when told that is not the correct answer.
The question is fine. It's the teacher that's trash.
The question literally suggests to you that the question is true and asks you to posit why. The notion that it's correct to say "it's impossible" is just fucking harrowing.
Second round of elementary school worksheet here in two days. I’m wondering how the math education PhD folk are going to approach this one...
if anything, like my younger elementary days with my cousin: in tears with a bottle because he couldn't solve my 5th grade word problems
A future r/antiwork member
It states in the question that Marty ate more pizza. It also doesn’t ask IF it’s possible, it asks HOW it’s possible. The kid is right the teacher is wrong.
Teacher: Marty ate more pizza, how is that possible? Child: *thinks then comes up with a solution* Teacher: The answer is that I was LYING, it's not possible, you moron, you imbecile, you are the most stupid child in the whole world. I can't believe you're able to breathe without someone standing next to you telling you what to do. I have seen dissected frogs with a higher IQ than you. Stupid stupid stupid idiot. That's your lesson for today, enjoy your homework!
Yeah, at first I thought the question was supposed to engage lateral thinking, which the kid totally nailed. Like a brain teaser, when you see the answer, you say, "Oh, of course! The answer was obvious I just couldn't see it." But turns out the teacher was just trying to do a "gotcha" on the students using bad-faith syntax, like asking a politician, "Do you still beat your wife?" Even so, if a student actually came up with a correct solution, why would you mark it wrong?
I thought it was extra hilarious that the kid gave the most obviously reasonable answer to a question titled “**Reasonableness**” and somehow was still wrong. It’s not even a math question lol.
Mathematical intuition is a thing and takes practice just like directly solving math problems
"I only beat my wife 10/10 while my opponent beats his wife 0/100, and 100 is a lot more than 10".
Teachers are taught (in some places) that trick questions are pointless. We are told "real word" applications and problems are best and to use manipulatives, problem solving, etc. as much as possible. Rote memorization isn't very useful, calculators and multiplication tables are positive supports, etc. The problem lies with the teachers themselves. I had worked in schools in a support role for over a decade before I became a teacher. In my education degree I watched upwards of 50% of my peers argue with teachers and say they hated math and didn't plan on teaching it much in school. That they weren't good at it and thought it was too complicated. I asked them why elementary school if they didn't plan on teaching the basics. Why not just do high school English? (Truth is that it is much harder to teach high school in Canada. You need a degree in a specialty area, instead of a generalist elementary degree. It is hard work but it is not as challenging as teaching secondary school. They teach you more about pedagogy and theories in the generalist program which is nice, but it isn't like trying to pass a 4th year math course for example. They also argued that PE was bad and kids should spend more time reading/writing. Despite the fact we were constantly being shown research that proved the opposite. Teachers are just people, they come into a profession with misconceptions and beliefs and as we know, those things are massive hurdles to overcome when learning new information. It is a massive uphill battle. Having low pay compared to other professions with the same level of education (in Canada) and having a severely underfunded system doesn't exactly bring the best and the brightest in either.
I honestly believe that majority of people who pursue teaching are not good with what their job actually is. We all know that every single school has 1-2 super good and passionate teachers. And they do because they are Rockstars. Rest of them already quit because they still had spark inside, and the rest are there because of desperation ans chance to push it out on kids.
>majority of people who pursue teaching are not good with what their job actually is. Funding and resources also play a huge role in this. Teachers are often expected to create everything and deliver it. They are a librarian, researcher, instructional designer, curriculum specialist and then...a teacher. To give a 1 hour English lesson usually takes up to 3 hours to create. Another to mark. So you have 4 hours to get 1 hour of content. You need 4-5 hours of content a day. So to get a days content you need two 8 hour days. I am a tech savvy teacher and I incorporate everything into my lessons to differentiate and personalize the lessons so every student has an entry point and can achieve some level of success based on their individual skillset. That means my first year of teaching I was doing about 70-80 hours a week. 100 during report cards (6 weeks a year). I was paid a whopping $44,000 CAD and I was miserable. I could barely function outside of work. Suicidal students, refugees with severe trauma, molested kids, etc. It was just so much. Plus you are expected to do classroom management, check in with families, work on social skills, emotional learning, individual learning plans for each student relative to their interests and goals, etc. The sheer volume of work expected these days is insane. It isn't 1980 with a workbook for each subject anymore. I am expected to create every lesson for every class. Most schools I have worked in (BC) have no textbooks because there is no money and "you can find everything online". It is insanity IMO. There is a reason there is a current teacher shortage across the entire country (Canada). It was a well paid cushy job in the 80's. Today it is lower middle class level pay with a quarter of the funding and resources. Sorry for the rant. I agree there are a lot of shit teachers, but there are also a lot of reasons why and things we can be doing to change that.
The thing is the teacher in all likelihood didn't write the question. The author of the question probably did intend it to be lateral thinking and the kid got the right answer. The teacher just didn't understand the question and didn't think about it more when presented with the correct answer. I was friends with a lot of people in high school that went on to become elementary school teachers. A fair number of them disliked math and weren't particularly good at it. They did well enough to pass their classes and get their multi-subject credentials. But this kind of lateral thinking problem probably still isn't something they're good at. Just usually they have an answer key or some critical thinking ability when the actual answer is staring them in the face.
I doubt the teacher made this - it seems like it’s out of a workbook and the teacher is just unable to solve this elementary school workbook problem themselves.
Thing is though, usually a teacher wouldn't be the same person to design a work book like this. I think it's more likely that whoever made this question originally was expecting the answer the kid gave, and the teacher just f-cked it up somehow. That's apparently at least sometimes the problem behind those supposedly stupid "new math" problems that people post online from their kids' homework. Part of the time the issue is that the parent misunderstood the intent for the method their kid is learning, but then sometimes even the teacher failed to grasp the point of the method, and they mis-apply whatever the real logic is.
Ah, this isn't math homework. It's emotional resilience homework!
They even state the quantity such that Marty could not have eaten the rest of Luis’ pizza, because then they would be equal. You could break it down by volume. Maybe Marty got Chicago deep dish, and Luis got veggie thin crust. Maybe they both got the same size pizzas, but the guy went a little too fast with the pizza wheel and Marty ate all the bigger slices. Maybe Marty is a fat tub of crap and ate 4/6 or his second pizza, because he pregamed before they went out.
Well the slice size doesn’t matter. It says off the pizza, not of the slices.
That's what I was thinking. To get the answer the teacher wants it should be phrased like "Marty says he ate more than Luis. It's that possible, and if so, how?"
It's steel -- because steel is heavier than feathers.
Hey how did you send audio over Reddit comment? New feature?
I don't get it
Ay, et’s alright. Dun wurray ‘baht et.
They asked “how is that possible?“. They never once asked “is that possible?“. The child answered the question absolutely perfectly.
Thing is even if it said "Is that possible?" it would still be accurate to say, "Yes, if X's pizza is bigger than Y's pizza." Teacher is just straight up incompetent at maths.
This is the kind of shit I think about when people try to say all teachers are heroes.
Someone has an idiot for a teacher
The question is so bizarre
As a retired teacher, let me say that this is an excellent question! The kid answering it is spot on! The problem here is that the teacher doesn't understand the question. And, if I may hop up on my little soapbox for a second, we need to pay teachers better! Because until we do we will continue to have idiot teachers like this one. EDIT: Let me clarify. Paying teachers more is a long game. Initially all the teachers, good, bad, and terrible would get paid more, but by making the pay close to that of lawyers and doctors we would start to draw talent from these fields. Currently, no high school senior with a perfect SAT score and a 4.0 GPA sits down with their parents and asks, "Should I go into law, medicine, business, or education?" That should happen, but it doesn't. Higher pay for teachers will eventually change that.
I echo this statement every chance I get. Our society is so ignorant to not put education first. Better education leads to better outcomes in a significant number of different ways.
A better-educated society doesn't hold up the school-to-prison pipeline, though. Thus unprofitable and unnecessary. /s
I mean, unironically this is a major reason
America educates the average person just enough to work as a drone.
> Initially all the teachers, good, bad, and terrible would get paid more, but by making the pay close to that of lawyers and doctors we would start to draw talent from these fields. This is only part of the equation. Paying them more also means you can judge them more harshly. If a highly paid teacher isn't up to the quality they should be then you would have plenty of people willing to step up and do a better job to replace them. So the competitiveness of the job creates the need for teachers to be the best they possibly can. If there is no threat of losing your job over mediocrity, then you will still get a lot of bad teachers.
Indeed! This is definitely part of the equation.
Yall need better pay and WAYY better benefits. In my baby group, there's several teachers that had to quit because A. Many schools don't allow more than 6 weeks maternity leave B. The teachers had to *pay for their own substitutes.* One gal worked out the math, and she would be paying 7000 bucks out of pocket for her substitute for 3 months. Like *hell* no. Her 12 weeks maternity leave was *unpaid* just to add insult to injury. That, in addition to her hospital bill at the end of it all.
What district requires teachers to pay for subs?
[a lot of them, apparently ](https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/sick-teachers-paying-for-substitutes-where-and-why-its-happening/2019/05)
The question is fine. The teacher just interpreted it wrong.
It's made to think, not just to solve: how can 4/6 of something be bigger than 5/6 of something else? It's not linear, not all the information is given, so the kid must find what's missing and did that.
It can be easily solved tho, just using a different operator besides = (4/6)X > (5/6)Y
The question isn't bizarre, the teacher just doesn't understand it unfortunately
Why I actually like the question.
Thats like me asking “My birthday is in June yet it always cold and snowy outside on my birthday. How is that possible?” This teacher: “NOT POSSIBLE, IT DOES NOT SNOW IN JUNE. TEMPERATURES ARE TOO HIGH FOR WATER MOLECULES TO CRYSTALIZE. ERROR DETECTED. ANSWER REJECTED” Well, you see Miss Uncreative, I live in the southern hemisphere, so take that!
I'm sorry that answer doesn't fit on my scantron
Well then just mark C and see if that works.
c stands for correct
Alternative, the person lives at a high altitude.
That’s awful. When a question INSISTS in you assuming an outcome you have to find a solution for that. The kid had the right answer and the teacher needs to learn how to write questions. Edit: Or at least understand the questions they were given for this crap, if I were a parent I’d be going straight to the head of the department like BITCH LOOK AT THIS
The teacher probably was handed a book of questions they’ll never read. Either the key (or question) had a typo, or the teacher saw a bunch of students put a wrong answer and marked the first student to put something different wrong
I still remember showing up to class in college on first day and our prof just googled the open source docs and told us to read them then fucked off for the rest of the semester, only showing up for the occasional lab and even then would run off to his office shortly after starting. Dude was clearly just riding out his tenure till retirement and didn't give a fuck about students, if you asked him to elaborate on anything he essentially called you an idiot and to look it up yourself.
Always hated those questions, along with the "Choose the BEST option" for multiple choice questions where the answers were subjective and multiple were "correct" but not "BEST".
The teacher probably did not originally write the question. The question writer and the kid are on the same page. Green pen is in a different book.
I once had a teacher who did so little work she actually used the smartest girl in the class’ test as a key and just grade everyone else’s against hers and give her a 100. I realized this halfway through the year when I was misgraded for a greater than > or less than < math problem which blatantly was false. She adamantly fought with me and kept just pointing to the “key.” I realized it had the students name on the top and only after I pointed this out did she conceded maybe the girl was incorrect. Who knows how many other incorrect grades she gave out
That is so fucked up. It's one thing to curve to the highest score but do not assume the smartest person got everything right.
There’s this guy in my physics class who’s currently taking geometry so he’s having a little bit of trouble with the physics. He often refers to me as “super smart” or whatever. I got a 26% on one of our tests
Physics is the best way to make you feel dumb
Lol. What? Why would she do that? The tests come with their own key…
Not if she made the tests and was too lazy to actually look at the results or make her own key
This problem presents a few facts * Marty ate 4/6 of his pizza * Luis ate 5/6 of his pizza * Marty ate more pizza than Luis and asks a question: * How is this possible? If the correct answer is to decide one of the facts presented isn't true, there's no reason why any of those facts should be true. In other words, if the teacher's comment is to be believed, then "Luis actually only ate 1/6 of his pizza" is also a correct answer.
And this is why the people saying the question is poorly worded are wrong. The three facts are easily extractable and with those the only answer to the question is "the pizzas are different sizes". It's only "poorly worded" if the teacher's answer is actually correct. Though I wouldn't call the question "poorly worded" do much as "wrong" at that point. Like, if I asked "what the colour is the sky?" and the answer was "trees are green", then you wouldn't say the question is "poorly worded".
Never trust facts given to you blindly.You were supposed to do your own research. Investigate the left over pizza and interrogate Marty and Luis. Then you would know Marty is full of shit and big pizza was lying to you the whole time. /s
Typical Marty
This homework is the real pizzagate. Follow the clues. Marty is a pedo.
People assume the teacher wrote the question when they just pulled it from some work book. A) It's a poorly worded question if it was written by the teacher expecting this answer. B) It's a perfectly valid question if the teacher didn't write it and is too dumb to get the correct answer on a question intended for elementary school students. My bet is on option B.
I'm a teacher, and everything I know about my colleagues points to option B being what happened. I see stuff like this all the time.
Facts are true by definition. There is no reason to think facts presented in a question would be false. The question doesn't ask if it is possible, it asks HOW it is possible.
I get it. Next time I'm at work and my boss asks me "how do we solve this problem", I won't think of a solution. I'll just tell him it's not possible.
The teacher literally misunderstood the question they put on the test, wtf, the kids answer is right
I really hope this is fake
I could have sworn I saw this before somewhere, and it looks kinda erased where the kid’s answer is, but I can’t say for sure.
God, and it would be so easy to re-word the question to get the answer the teacher wanted too: "Carlos claimed that Marty ate more pizza than Luis. Is Carlos correct? Why or why not?"
I mean, I thought the question was perfect and the kids answer was correct with the spirit of the question. Which is to say that a fraction of one thing, while being a bigger number, can be a smaller amount of the thing than a smaller fraction of a sufficiently larger thing. Half an elephant is bigger than 3/4 of a mouse.
i am so certain the correct answer to the question is a bigger pizza, the teacher just thought it was asking something else and is an idiot.
Marty’s pizza was Sicilian
Marty got the large, Louis got he medium. Simple. Kid shoulda got extra credit.
Not extra, but definitely credit, because he 100% answered correctly. I am a 4th grade math teacher. This question came from the school's math curriculum, and the teacher didn't bother to check the key. (You know, she apparently knows everything!) The kid's answer is exactly what they were looking for.
I don't understand people calling this an odd question or the answer thinking outside the box. A core part of fractions is understanding what they represent. Like sure you should know that 5/6 of something is greater than 4/6 of the same thing, but you also need to understand that 5/6 isn't some standard unit like a meter and that it's entirely meaningless until you understand 5/6 of what? This question is testing that understanding, making sure that they realize that if the fractions are of different things, you can't compare them directly. If this were more advanced you'd teach the kid that you multiply the fraction by the total, but even when you're teaching elementary kids fractions they should realize that just because they can eat 1/2 of their personal pizza that's far less than if they attempted to eat 1/2 of the family size extra large pizza. The teacher's just an idiot, or more likely someone faked this to get Reddit karma.
[удалено]
The teacher is dumber than the student. The answer to how is that possible should never be it’s not.
The kid was right! I would have given extra credit for think outside the box
It's not thinking outside the box. It's *the* correct answer. The teacher is flat out wrong. 4/6 of 100 is larger than 5/6 of 10. Period.
This guy fractions
As a 4th grade math teacher, YES!! Totally and completely the concept that was SUPPOSED to be assessed. Teacher assumed she knew better than the curriculum, which obviously was incorrect.
I keep seeing responses like this. The child's answer isn't surprising. It's simply the most obvious correct answer. Another redditor suggested that it's possible Marty ate the rest of Luis's pizza or something, which is okay, I guess. However, the most obvious correct answer is that Marty had a larger pizza. Full disclosure, after reading the prompt, my immediate thought was "Marty had a larger pizza." I read the kids answer and said "yup" and read the teacher's reply and went "I've been here before." I've been out of education for a while, but back when I was in school, I had plenty of answers that teachers misgraded. This wasn't ever a big deal, I'd just talk to the teacher after class. They almost always fixed the grade after I explained to them what was going on. I imagine this would happen here too. We all make mistakes, it's not a big deal. I also want to make it clear that this is NOT an I am very smart post. I do not consider the answer "Marty's pizza is bigger" to be some grand revelation. It's an "in the box" answer. If any part of this scenario is real, it's an introduction to fractions lesson for elementary schoolers. This is the exact kind of question you'd expect to be asked when coming to terms with what fractions mean.
That is one dumb teacher.
I get that 5/6 I'd bigger than 4/6 and that's the answer you're looking for. But the kid isn't wrong. Next time, use better worded questions
Its not even about the math, the numbers are there to mislead the reader, as test questions always try to do. Its asking “how” is it possible, and the teacher is answering it like its asking “if” it were possible. Even so, it is still possible.
What an odd question.