13 Eyebrows?

13 Eyebrows?

We came across this nice story about a teacher who asked his pupils to write a story about 13 x 2.

As the boy was leaving his class, he handed in his story to the teacher and apologised.  The teacher asked why he was apologising and he said “I have written a story about 2 x 13 not 13 x 2”

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The big lesson here is that the order matters in multiplication when put into context.

Although the above example would produce the same result calculated either way – putting in the ‘story’ behind the maths puts a whole new spin on things.  We think that this is a great example to use when discussing misconceptions in maths.