16 Mar 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”
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.
