Memento_Mori15
Member
For some reason, knew you were referring to linear algebra. Either way, vectors and matrices have their own set of properties.
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In Japanese primary schools, math problems are really word problems.
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Onion_Relish
Member
I don't know how much the rest of you know about Japanese culture (I'm an expert), but honor and shame are huge parts of it. It's not like it is in America where you can become successful by being an asshole. By being so specific and anal, this teacher has definitely shot himself in the foot.
Also is 5x3 isn't 15, what is the answer?
Also is 5x3 isn't 15, what is the answer?
At this level, when you're just asking for the total at the end yeah it doesn't matter. But if anything, either teaching the kids this way and/or marking this kid down for it is just getting them to realise that there is a logical difference in ordering/grouping.
If they stick with the format all the way through grade/middle/highschool, I'm not too fussed about it, in fact I'd encourage more things like this. However if multiplication is taught the same way it is taught in same way we were taught and then this is put in the exam just to be anal? then yeah, the teacher is a dick.
MadraptorMan
Member
It seems to me that the teacher counted it wrong because the kid didn't use the counter こ (個
for describing the number of apples. But that seems like a pretty dick move anyway.
EDIT: nevermind, I looked at it wrong. The kid did get credit for the answer, but not for the method he used.
for describing the number of apples. But that seems like a pretty dick move anyway.EDIT: nevermind, I looked at it wrong. The kid did get credit for the answer, but not for the method he used.
Necromanti
Member
If ambiguity is such a problem, then just have the units on there.
"There are 5 cars. How many tires do you have altogether?"
5 x 4 = 20
5 cars with 4 tyres, 5 times 4
or
4 tyres for 5 cars. 4 times 5
There is nothing wrong with the order of multiplication here, this is terrible abuse of mathematics. It should never be mixed with language in such a way to destroy fundamental rules, this should be stopped immediately, these teachers aren't qualified mathematicians and shouldn't be teaching anyone if this is how they do it.
5 x 4 = 20
5 cars with 4 tyres, 5 times 4
or
4 tyres for 5 cars. 4 times 5
There is nothing wrong with the order of multiplication here, this is terrible abuse of mathematics. It should never be mixed with language in such a way to destroy fundamental rules, this should be stopped immediately, these teachers aren't qualified mathematicians and shouldn't be teaching anyone if this is how they do it.
Rocky_Balboa
Member
When I was studying in Japan, I really disliked the school atmosphere. There was not much questioning and everything was taken as it was taught. If teacher wrote with the red pen, students wrote with the red pen and so on. I can imagine that 3*5&5*3 conversation would not go anywhere there if somebody has the "balls" to talk about it.
GrandHarrier
Member
So in Japan, the mathematical expressions of:
5x3 != 3x5
Which means:
15 != 15
NOTHING IS REAL.
5x3 != 3x5
Which means:
15 != 15
NOTHING IS REAL.
I'd go further: Marking like this predisposes the child to not accept the commutative property as being factual in the future. I'm okay with teaching young children neglecting more complicated aspects of maths - there's nothing wrong with that - but don't tell them that they're *wrong* and leave them confused in the long run.
No wonder that no one has sex.
No time for that when reality is collapsing around you
As one of the world's preeminent programming authorities, I don't know either.
The hell is this?
Both constants:
Fucking write 20.
One constant, one variable:
Total = Cars * 4
Total = TiresPerCar * 5
Both variables:
Total = Cars * TiresPerCar
Total = TiresPerCar * Cars
It's all the same fucking shit. And of course cars can have different numbers of tires. We have motorcylces, fucking Mr Bean's car with 3 wheels, cars with 4 wheels, cars with 4 wheels and a spare tire for 5, pickup trucks with doubled rear tires for a total of 6, trucks with 8, 10, 12, ... 22 wheels.
If you're gonna force 4 down everyone's throat you wouldn't be multiplying anyway, that's a 2 bit shift left for your standard notations.
Because they have decided it like that due to how they teach them to do multiplication beyond x10. It really makes no difference and can be explained either way aside from that.
In a word problem, 3*5 most certainly does not equal 5*3 and it's one of the things my students struggle with understanding. If it's just a stand alone equation and not a part of a word problem, than yes they are the same.
Edit: I will say that to be honest it is probably one if the least important things I teach and it's only real purpose is to help them organize the information within the world problem. So for instance if the phrase "3 feet" comes before "5 toes" in a word problem, I encourage then to write it out as 3*5 just to keep the information in order. But it certainly isn't a big deal to me if they don't do it.
edit 2 : "most certainly does not" is way too extreme a statement. I'd say that it's simply helpful to distinguish the two in my circumstance.
Edit: I will say that to be honest it is probably one if the least important things I teach and it's only real purpose is to help them organize the information within the world problem. So for instance if the phrase "3 feet" comes before "5 toes" in a word problem, I encourage then to write it out as 3*5 just to keep the information in order. But it certainly isn't a big deal to me if they don't do it.
edit 2 : "most certainly does not" is way too extreme a statement. I'd say that it's simply helpful to distinguish the two in my circumstance.
Devolution
Member
Still correct even with a word problem. The problem is not in the order but the units being labeled.
As long as you are clear about what units apply to what objects, it is the same.
It depends what the 3 and the 5 are intended to represent. As long as it's representing the correct information, it's an adequate representation of the word problem.
I think it's the same until units or words are written. One can word it either way.
Units or words should be required if a distinction is required as well.
edit: Actually scratch that, I can't make it seem different that way either. It's the same thing. Whether a child understands it and can explain whether we are adding a pile of apples, or an apple to each pile is a different matter, but as equation it's simply correct either way.
It's also worth noting that I teach fourth graders, half or more of whom are esl to some degree. Word problems in math are their biggest struggle in math and helping them pull out information and organize it is a big part of helping them learn to solve word problems. So encouraging them to write an equation down in the order the information is presented is, despite my rather lazy attitude towards it, very helpful for them.
True, but they need to be taught that. Some kids will just assume, others will need some prompting.
The closest example I can think of was this kid who was in one of my classes when I was much younger. We'd be taught say, the multiplications of 4, so:
1 x 4 = 4
2 x 4 = 8
3 x 4 = 12
...
7 x 4 = 28
etc.
But he'd get confused if you wrote 7 x 4 as 4 x 7 because "we haven't learnt the '7 times table' yet". So the way his mind would read 7 x 4 is that the latter is "the thing I want to multiply" , and the former is "the number of times I want to multiply the latter". It's a bad way of thinking and I'm sure he got over it, but it's probably quite common for young kids depending on how they're taught. It definitely shouldn't be encouraged.
I don't mind this so much first because he didn't include units so it could be 4 cars with five wheels. Math is a language and when you do a word problem you are translating that problem into the language of math and then deriving some further information from the relationships of the values. 5 cars with 4 tires each is not the same thing as 4 cars with 5 tires each (maybe they are counting the spare tire). So when translating it to math there is a distinction between the two. Getting the answer is not the highest goal of math and teaching children at a young age that there is meaning to the numbers and that meaning can be obfuscated in the math when the sentence/equation is poorly phrased is a good idea.
teruterubozu
Member
It doesn't matter. That kid will crush 95% of American high schoolers in math in 2 years. Sad but true *Metallica riff*
But it's this exactly the opposite case? A child is being told that 3*5 is not the same as 5*3 here. I absolutely agree that word problems require to be understood in order to formulate an equation and that children sometimes have a problem with it.
What I don't agree with is subjugating the generated expression to the rules of a particular language and a particular way of saying it. The solution would be to ask the child to write "cars" and "tires" after the appropriate numbers, not to teach it that tires come before cars, and apples before plates or whichever way someone decided it to be.
pants
Member
Wikipedia quote about PISA ranking and asian education:
subtext: asian students are good at taking tests, maybe not so good at using knowledge in real life situation, like research.
Sarcastico
Member
Just add the required unit in the end. "20 tires".
Fixed it up for you. Your wording just seemed like Asian people inherently were only good at test taking.
NuclearSpy
Member
Yeah, no. Anyone who teaches math this way needs to be fired.
First of all, mathematics is not physical. It is a solely and intuitively understood concept that is applicable to reality. The mathematical tables were discovered, not invented.
What this teacher is doing is attempting to invent mathematics in order to instantiate them into objects. This is false. Even if the objects appear absurd, thats not because "math" was done incorrectly.
Its a good thing we aren't in ancient greece cause he would have been brutally murdered by a math posse for teaching bullshit.
First of all, mathematics is not physical. It is a solely and intuitively understood concept that is applicable to reality. The mathematical tables were discovered, not invented.
What this teacher is doing is attempting to invent mathematics in order to instantiate them into objects. This is false. Even if the objects appear absurd, thats not because "math" was done incorrectly.
Its a good thing we aren't in ancient greece cause he would have been brutally murdered by a math posse for teaching bullshit.
I think we should export you to Japan.
I firmly disagree wth theaching anything that is straight-up wrong. I've seen it in other cases, too, and it just bugs me. What the hell is the point? Un-learning things is a huge waste of effort. Just don't teach things that are wrong in the first place.
Ha.
Ha.
Actually the programming explanation is completely valid. A computer doesn't look at X the same way we do. Computers can't make inferences at the (high level) language level.
The only thing invalid is that this isn't a programming class for kindergartners in the first place.
It's not the same fucking shit. A car needs 4 tires no matter. Tires aren't dependent on the number of cars. It completely alters the way you have to approach making formulas for the computer to account for when one variable is always going to be constant and the constant you have to write differently everytime.
In other words the workload for representing cars as constant values in your program is dramatically higher and at greater risk of making bugs because it's you instead of the PC that has to keep track on the shifting amount of cars.
And you highlight something I've long forgotten about. I'm sure it wasn't just the 2 of us that had the word problem curveball thrown at us when we were 6/7.
The japanese would be laughing at our asses for struggling with something so simple.
I also agree with that. I was just giving an example of how kids can get very easily confused if they're not taught the basics early on. I should've more clearly separated that from the part where I quoted you.
Dude, it doesn't make a difference.
Total = variable x constant
Total = constant x variable
You can do whatever you like. The computer understands the binary operator * and knows to multiply two together. It is also by definition a commutative operation.
Comparing it to programming makes no sense because there is no limitation on the order of the parameters for that particular operator.
Therefore if you want to set const TOTAL_TYRES_ON_CAR = 4;
Total = 5 * TOTAL_TYRES_ON_CAR;
Total = TOTAL_TYRES_ON_CAR * 5;
It doesn't make any difference. There is no reason why the constant should be listed first of last apart from arbitrary decisions from the programmer.
But you would certainly not count it as an error if one student didn't follow that system 100%, right? I mean, that's the crazy part here. The kid has written down the right answer but it's marked as an error.
MadraptorMan
Member
He got credit for the answer, but not the method.
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