The look on Mark's face said that last night's math homework assignment would not be easy. Based on past experience with him, I doubted I would enjoy it either. Mark was faced with a double-sided page of 88 multiplication problems like 804,365 times 3,288.
We had a little "pep talk" and I promised Mark that I would give him a little break each time he finished 10 problems. After the first set of ten, he jogged to and from the stop sign at the end of the street and then did 120 sit-ups. This system worked fairly well, and then I left to attend my book club. Lance took over.
A couple of hours into our book club meeting, I received a phone call from Mark. He was distraught. It seems that while looking at Mark's paper, Lance noticed the instructions written in large print at the top of the page: "Do the problem numbers that are multiples of 4." Mark had needlessly completed 53 extra problems. He was neither happy nor amused. I tried to help him see the positive side--he got lots of extra math practice. He didn't seem consoled, but had calmed down by the time I arrived home about 30 minutes after our conversation.
We sent him to bed even though he still had 5 of the hardest problems to work. He still wasn't finished when he left for school. Hopefully, we've all learned a lesson: read the instructions BEFORE starting the assignment.
2 comments:
Oh man! What a night. That seems just the sort of trick a math teacher would pull. I'm sure he'll never fail to read instructions after this little experience.
Ugh. That's the WORST!
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