Eenie, Meenie, Median, Mode
The sixth grade teachers mercifully gave me the first week of school off. I knew it would start eventually. The bane of my existence: homework.
My husband and I have a tag team relationship when it comes to homework. I help color and he helps with everything else. Unfortunately, he works two evenings a week and I was on my own.
Matt handed me a worksheet with three columns of numbers. Below the columns were the instructions for a science experiment involving the boiling of water.
"We have to boil water?" I asked.
No, we did that at school.
(Goodie!)
Where did you get all these numbers you wrote in these columns?
At school.
(Goodie again!)
Then this is done, right? You are just showing me an experiment you did at school?
No. See here? We have to find the mean, median and mode for each of these columns.
The what?
Mean, median and mode!
I am a little rusty on that, Matt. (Translation: I don’t know what the hell you are talking about)
To my relief there was an additional page explaining mean, median and mode with examples. I read the instructions. I really did. I checked his work and it all looked fine to me.
After LB arrived home (close to midnight) I waited for him to get comfy and then thrust the paper towards him.
Here’s Matt’s homework for the evening. I thought you might want to give it a double check.
After I explained that the mean, median and mode were our only concern he picked up a calculator and began his calculations.
"This is all wrong! Can’t that boy read instructions? I’ll help him correct it in the morning."
I wrestled with myself very briefly whether or not I should confess my part and decided that sleep was a better option.
The next morning LB waited patiently for Matt to finish his breakfast before springing the homework on him.
“It’s right!” Matt argued.
“No, it is NOT” LB responded with a slight edge in his voice.
“But...Mom helped me.” (Ratfink)
LB handed the instruction page to me, “Dear, here are the instructions. See? Next time maybe you should read them before helping him”
I …nevermind.
“Don’t worry”, he said as he patted me on the head. “We’ll have you doing sixth grade math by the end of the year.”
Not unless it involves crayons.
My husband and I have a tag team relationship when it comes to homework. I help color and he helps with everything else. Unfortunately, he works two evenings a week and I was on my own.
Matt handed me a worksheet with three columns of numbers. Below the columns were the instructions for a science experiment involving the boiling of water.
"We have to boil water?" I asked.
No, we did that at school.
(Goodie!)
Where did you get all these numbers you wrote in these columns?
At school.
(Goodie again!)
Then this is done, right? You are just showing me an experiment you did at school?
No. See here? We have to find the mean, median and mode for each of these columns.
The what?
Mean, median and mode!
I am a little rusty on that, Matt. (Translation: I don’t know what the hell you are talking about)
To my relief there was an additional page explaining mean, median and mode with examples. I read the instructions. I really did. I checked his work and it all looked fine to me.
After LB arrived home (close to midnight) I waited for him to get comfy and then thrust the paper towards him.
Here’s Matt’s homework for the evening. I thought you might want to give it a double check.
After I explained that the mean, median and mode were our only concern he picked up a calculator and began his calculations.
"This is all wrong! Can’t that boy read instructions? I’ll help him correct it in the morning."
I wrestled with myself very briefly whether or not I should confess my part and decided that sleep was a better option.
The next morning LB waited patiently for Matt to finish his breakfast before springing the homework on him.
“It’s right!” Matt argued.
“No, it is NOT” LB responded with a slight edge in his voice.
“But...Mom helped me.” (Ratfink)
LB handed the instruction page to me, “Dear, here are the instructions. See? Next time maybe you should read them before helping him”
I …nevermind.
“Don’t worry”, he said as he patted me on the head. “We’ll have you doing sixth grade math by the end of the year.”
Not unless it involves crayons.
posted by Victoria at 5:12 PM
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