Why would I give this moment to someone else?
Emmett and I were working some very simple algebraic equations this morning, when we came across this one:
5 - 2n = 10
He looked at it and started laughing. "Five minus 2n equals 10?" The very idea of "n" being a negative number was hilarious, apparently. Next, he said, "2n must equal minus 5! N is minus one and a half!" He fixed that error pretty quickly, but I still went through the equations with him to get to the answer. When we got to
-2n = 5
he was stumped again. More laughter. I realized that he doesn't really know that negative*negative=positive etc, so I helped him figure out that he needed to divide both sides by -2 here.
Watching him struggle a bit and then make connections is fun. The laughter seems to come up when he's right at the edges of understanding something but not quite there yet (it's almost nervous laughter, but he really seems to think the way math works is funny).
5 - 2n = 10
He looked at it and started laughing. "Five minus 2n equals 10?" The very idea of "n" being a negative number was hilarious, apparently. Next, he said, "2n must equal minus 5! N is minus one and a half!" He fixed that error pretty quickly, but I still went through the equations with him to get to the answer. When we got to
-2n = 5
he was stumped again. More laughter. I realized that he doesn't really know that negative*negative=positive etc, so I helped him figure out that he needed to divide both sides by -2 here.
Watching him struggle a bit and then make connections is fun. The laughter seems to come up when he's right at the edges of understanding something but not quite there yet (it's almost nervous laughter, but he really seems to think the way math works is funny).
Comments
x^2= -1
:)