I may not be smarter than a 5th grader. Rather, I may not be the best tutor for 5th grade math. One of the students needed help with fractions and decimals and percentages, and the only thing I could tell her was, "I wouldn't bother learning this fancy math. The only thing you'll need to know as an adult is, 'How do I figure out what 20% of this bill is?'" I also instructed her to never allow drinks to be added to a dinner bill that included more than three people. Always make friends pay for their alcohol as they order it. Hopefully she'll remember that piece of advice when she's older.
3 comments:
As a math tutor at the community college it pains me to say you are basically correct. As an asshole, however, I have to say you probably created another bunch of kids I'll be straightening out in about a decade. Why not tutor them in comedic timing? That way they'll be really good at sarcastic comebacks to their boss in their non-math based job at Starbucks.
I'm a complete douche and I sponsored this post.
Most of the math fractions we do as adult are because we still haven't switch to the metric system! We learned it in the 70's!!!! If Obama wins this should be up at the top of his to-do list.
When I was in HS I was the type of student who was asking "am I really gonna need this when I'm an adult"? Most of my teachers would say yes with a hint of doubt in their voice. Where as math isn't "necessary" in all aspects of life. It's nice to know more then the basics just in case. Personally I still can't figure out the word problems like "if train A is leaving California @ 70 mph & train B is leaving NY @ 100 mph..." I thought that as crappy trick question anyway but that's my opinion an I'm stickin to it!
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