These days, homework isn’t just the bane of a student’s existence, it’s also their parents’ as well. This is especially true of Gen X and millennial parents struggling to figure out their kids’ math homework, as the education system pivoted to teaching “common core” around 2010, and most of us had fully graduated from college by that point, leaving us without a clue how to solve basic math problems the “new way.”
One particularly vexed parent took his irritation to Reddit after encountering a multiple choice question that had no clearly correct answer.
“Kayla has 18 bottles of bubbles,” the problem began. “She wants to give two bottles to each of her six friends. How many bottles will she have left over?”
The kids were then challenged to choose one of four options that determine which expression would correctly solve the word problem at hand. Only, as the father pointed out, none of those options seem correct.
The options were:
A) (18/2)/6
B) (18/2) + 6
C) (18 x 2) – 6
D) (18 x 2) + 6.
While the dad reported that the teacher claimed option A was the correct answer, he was still dumbfounded on how they got it.
[5th Grade Math] Curious how to solve this math question my son has
byu/zebdor44 inHomeworkHelp
“Curious how they came to this answer? None of the options seemed right as I was expecting it to be 18 – (6 × 2). Where 2 bottles are handed out to each friend. 6 friends total, meaning 12 bottles are given out, so 6 bottles are left over. I must be missing something in how it’s worded but I can’t for the life of me figure it out,” the dad wrote.
The post sparked over 200 comments from equally confused readers.
“Your answer seems to be correct, none of those options are correct,” affirmed one fellow Redditor.
Others attempted to figure out the teacher’s logical explanation for “A” being the correct answer, but most of the solutions people came up with fell short.
“Using bad logic, this is the only way I can get any of the answer choices (and it is A) – I’m not saying it’s correct, only wanted to explain their (wrong) logic: She’s splitting the 18 bottles into sets of 2, that’s 18 / 2. Then, she’s splitting those sets of 2 among her 6 friends. That’s why you divide by 6 next. That leaves you with A. But as everyone here has said, you and your son are correct. The worksheet is wrong.”
The dad took the massive confusion as a sign to reach out to the teacher herself.
He reported back that he got a slightly disturbing answer and the worksheet was indeed wrong. “I did talk with the teacher and they went over it in class together. The teacher mentioned none of the answers were not right and what my son came up with was correct,” he shared.
This only horrified parents further (more so about the overall education system), noting that the implication that they went over it in class means they worked through the problem together but clearly didn’t.
A self-proclaimed educator said that this is directly related to the lack of support teachers are getting in the classroom.
“We don’t support teachers with official materials anymore,” they claimed. “Teachers are increasingly turning to downloading or even buying worksheets other teachers produce. A not insignificant number of these have major typos or mistakes. Because they aren’t reviewed and vetted.”
For the sake of all our sanity, we hope we can find a way to support educators more, so they can adequately support our children more.
