Posted on 10/17/2014 11:21:49 AM PDT by therightliveswithus
In an intentional attempt to study and potentially confuse children, children were asked "There are 25 sheep and 5 dogs in a flock. How old is the shepherd?" Why might you ask this supposedly common-core aligned question?
According to the teachers who created this problem, it is to teach students that they must:
1. Explain the meaning of a problem.
2. Plan a solution pathway rather than simply jumping into a solution attempt.
3. Continually ask themselves, "Does this make sense?"
This question has actually been researched for years, and is still being asked to children. Today, however, it is now considered aligned with the common core because it forces children to think about their strategies in answering questions.
So, how did students actually answer the question? As expected, with a great amount of confusion:
And:
(Excerpt) Read more at thepunditpress.com ...
There used to be a puzzler printed in the newspapers that I read. There would be 5 or 6 statements of the order of , “Chloe wore a blue dress, and Sam likes fried shrimp”. From these questions, you were supposed to deduce who had killed James.
Some were harder than others, but all were solvable. I know because I solved them. But this question is not, and only a fool would consent to teach this to children.
LOL.....
Who is buried in Grant’s Tomb?
I’d bet that you are wrong.
If it takes 25 pumpkins to fill a lamp post, how many board-feet in a brush pile?
When I was a kid we got “Is it shorter to New York or by bus?”
Answer is intuitively obvious to even a causal observer
“43, because ice cream has no bones.
Roosters don't lay eggs, hens do, but I'm sure somewhere there is a government agency that wants to change that in the name of gender equality.
Or, chef
He is 2014 years old.
Where’s my prize?
"The age of the shepherd is irrelevant. Sheep are irrelevant. Dogs are irrelevant.
Your children will be assimilated."
Q: Why is an orange?
A: It's a motorcycle, because a telephone pole doesn't have four doors.
An African or a European rooster?
what’s the difference between a duck? One legs both the same.
Not enough information:
1. Is the shepherd a muzzie; and
2. are he and any of the sheep in a "relationship"?
How many animals did Moses have on the ark?
The “solution pathway” is simple. Pick a random number between 10 and 100. That is the shepherd’s age.
Logic: since the information given in the question is completely irrelevant to the solution, no number you give is any more than a guess anyway. There is no right or wrong answer, and your answer cannot be proven wrong unless the teacher can prove that the shepherd is in fact some other age. Which I challenge him to do given only the same information the student was given.
The correct answer is:
“Pay me $5,000, or I report you to the police for taking drugs in school.”
Between the age of 0 and 1000.
Reasoning: Age must be a positive real number. It must be less than 1,000 because the oldest person recorded as living was less than 1,000 years old.
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