1 divided by 0 (a 3rd grade teacher & principal both got it wrong), Reddit r/NoStupidQuestions

[@bprpmathbasics]

[The trickiest 1% problem] In a room of 100 people, 99% are left-handed. How many left-handed people have to leave the room to bring that percentage down to 98%? Ans: kzbin.info/www/bejne/i2fInoSum5KWrrs

[@KO-zi2xf]

51 additional people need to leave ?

[@preston74]

@@KO-zi2xfa total of 50 left handed people must leave room. This will result in 49 of 50 are left handed remains in room.

[@lancehobbs8012]

The best way to describe this is that dividing by zero isn't a mathematical function , in the same way as moving an object by zero mm isnt a movement. It* hasn't been divided* it *hasn't moved*

[@Tullminator]

I had to do a book report in the 2nd grade on an animal, I chose the Tasmanian devil. The teacher yelled at me, ridiculed me, and said it had to be a real animal, not a cartoon. I went to the encyclopedia and to the principal she made her apologize to me me. She was not happy.

[@jeffreyrichard2575]

Reminds me of during the ticketing process for the Atlanta Olympics, a ticketing clerk was unaware that New Mexico was a US State and told the purchaser that they had to order tickets through their home country. "old Mexico- New Mexico....you have to order from your own country.."

[@Natediggetydog]

@@jeffreyrichard2575 the amount of stories I’ve seen of people who don’t know that New Mexico is a U.S. state is alarming

[@qwenqwen1476]

With Google so handy….please look up and verify before you speak😊

[@Tullminator]

@@qwenqwen1476 Huh? This was before Google.

[@jeffreyrichard2575]

@@qwenqwen1476 Better yet, get an actual education and KNOW THINGS instead of using Google as a crutch.

[@markjodonohue]

As a math teacher, this hurts me a lot... What hurts the most isn't the lack of math knowledge though, it's the fact the teacher refuses to admit that they may not know something, and perhaps learn from it... I teach senior mathematics and almost every week I get asked a question from a student I have no idea of the answer to. Imagine if I just came up with answers and refused to change my mind because the "student can't possibly know something I dont"! I'd be a horrible teacher! Instead, I admit I don't know it, and either work it out with the student, or ask them to find out the answer and teach me something!

[@Thowe]

I feel like as you move up in grade levels math teachers become more understanding of their errors / mistakes, especially since the concepts become a lot more complicated. My algebra and algebra 2 / pre-calc teachers would always mark off points for me without a second thought even though I would do the problems correctly, just not their method. Now with my Calc 3 teacher and my BC Calc teacher they would always be understanding and mess up at times. As you go up in math level teachers understand how complex math is more and more, so I think thats why many elementary school math teachers will do this sort of thing: they don't understand the higher level stuff

[@Elrog3]

@@Thowe "just not their method" You have my sympathy. That always pissed me off.

[@andrewhone3346]

Sounds like you are a good teacher. I am a university maths professor. The more I do mathematical research, the more I understand about how many things there are that I don't understand, but I enjoy learning new things all the time. I particularly like it when a student points out a mistake I have made, because then I know that someone understands and is following my argument. As I have taught for many years, I rarely get undergraduate questions that I cannot answer, which makes it less exciting in some ways. With graduate students it is completely different: more like a joint endeavour, approaching a problem where we don't always know what the answer will look like, or sometimes, we don't even know if there is an answer!

[@onisuryaman408]

I am a teacher too. And I make mistakes, sometimes. And I used this opportunity to teach my students how to avoid making the same mistakes. To err is human. We all do that. It is just some doesn't choose this opportunity to grow.

[@nooneyouknowhere6148]

When my youngest son was in high school taking AP algebra II, his techer did not understand the material. She would count some of his work wrong because the answers in the teacher book were wrong. He would have to prove to her that the book had the wrong answer. Unfortunately this happened more than you would expect from a school book publisher.

[@OTElron]

The actual answer to his question is: "Move your son to another school, asap."

[@QQnowQQlater]

The actual answer is "unplug your computer and spend time with your kid, and stop relying on everyone else to raise them."

[@TheOnceandFutureJake]

​@@QQnowQQlaterYou're awfully judgemental of someone who you know nothing about.

[@QQnowQQlater]

quick post it on /r/AITA instead of seeing the tree from the forest.@@TheOnceandFutureJake

[@Smartz118]

@@QQnowQQlater I hope you have no kids.

[@Michael-bn1oi]

@@QQnowQQlater Take your own advice. Get offline.

[@christas4767]

The reason this is SO IMPORTANT is because IT IS FOUNDATIONAL for a deeper mathematical understanding as children learn BEYOND 3rd grade. PLEASE the answer is not 0 and I love that he ERASES the equal sign when he writes “undefined”. Thank you for posting this. 0 does not equal undefined. ❤

[@garyboswell8860]

It’s not foundational. Nowhere in the real world will this type of math be needed. Ever.

[@christas4767]

@@garyboswell8860division won’t ever be needed? Ok. ☮️❤️

[@garyboswell8860]

@ not algebra. Basic math..,addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and a basic understanding of fractions, decimals and percentages etc. It becomes useless when you add letters, imaginary number, square roots, pi, multiplying fractions, etc. Useless in real life. And you will never divide a number by zero in the real world.

[@breeminator]

@@garyboswell8860 In the real world, some people write computer software for a living, and if their code doesn't handle division by zero correctly, their software won't work. There are many fields that people work in where advanced maths is required, their work is the real world for those people.

[@pcenero]

@garyboswell8860 if people like you were in charge of aeronautics, ballistics, and the economy, we'd all be bartering worms and fighting with sticks.

[@sm5574]

Is no one else impressed that this guy can effortlessly alternate between two markers at the same time in the same hand?

[@georgegkoumas5026]

I am impressed, but you must be new to his channel because that's basically his thing and where the channel name comes from (Black Pen Red Pen -> bprp). It is indeed quite satisfying and I recommend you to watch some of his more advanced calculus videos where this skill is displayed in full potential.

[@shantilkhadatkar1195]

​@@georgegkoumas5026I do the same but with pen. It hurts but the good kind.

[@meerak915]

It's an acquired skill. Spend enough time at a whiteboard, and you'll find yourself juggling markers with one hand. It's not terribly different from the skills we see older generations use with Blackboards.

[@sm5574]

@@meerak915, black boards require significantly more pressure to make a readable mark, and colored chalk is less common than colored markers. I have absolutely never seen anyone handle more than one piece of chalk at a time (unless the were using a specialized tool, such as for drawing music staves), and chalboards were still being used when I was in school.

[@ctm92]

I'm more impressed by the enormous stock of markers in the background

[@oujisama05]

I remember having a science teacher in elementary school and we were discussing planets, and he mentioned that only saturn had rings. We had a small book about planets at home that had photos of uranus and neptune having rings as well and I brought that book to school and showed him. Instead of insisting on what he said, he smiled and told me it was probably a new finding he didnt know about and corrected himself. Until this day, I think this encounter w this teacher enabled me to speak up easier.

[@killercereal4567]

that’s so sweet :) it makes me happy to see adults encouraging kids to ask questions. as you said, i think it helps them be more capable of being able to speak up as well as critically think as they get older. if i were that teacher i’d be happy that one of my students was that attentive to still be thinking about it after school

[@gewgulkansuhckitt9086]

I remember when it was discovered that the other gas giants had rings. Prior to that, only Saturn was thought to have rings.

[@TwilightRogue15]

That is a great teacher. We need more like him!

[@spidey1z]

Out of curiosity, how old are you? I’m 51 and we were taught the giant planets all had rings, which I assumed was known for awhile. But I see Jupiter’s ring wasn’t discovered till 1979

[@oujisama05]

@@spidey1z I'm in my early 30s, but the education for elementary schools here aren't very updated back when I was studying. I was lucky to have supplementary materials my parents gave us when we were interested in certain topics.

[@ZwiReKBeats]

I hated math in school... 15 years later I'm watching math videos for entertainment.... life is wild

[@dominikpawowski3126]

same here

[@stomyn]

One thing I've learned as an adult is that learning and math can actually be quite fun. It's school that sucks

[@waydeclarke5349]

Indeed

[@greybey4385]

I'm still in school but I still enjoyed this video. I think it has more to do with doing things by choice. Like, I enjoy reading in my free time because I get to choose what to read, but if I'm forced to read a book in school that just doesn't interest me at all, I'm not gonna be able to enjoy reading it. It's the same with math

[@haraldbredsdorff2699]

I suspect many hated math, because they had a math math teacher. So, it was not the math that was the problem, but that the teacher could not teach the subject.

[@ILuvBoysInDresses]

When I was in school we were simply told nothing could be divided by 0. We were given no reason, it was just a stated fact, and we never did any division questions involving 0 on its own. This explanation not only clarified *why* nothing can be divided by 0, but made me realize my schooling *completely ignored* the inverse! 0 itself *can* be divided by any number, it's just that the outcome that direction is always 0. Silly thing to get excited about maybe, but I've been out of math classes for over ten years and it's cool to be able to still learn something!

[@AnarexicSumo]

No, you can not divide anything by 0. In Calculus we approximate this by dividing by increasing/infinitely small numbers and then seeing what that answer approaches. If you divide anything by 0 the outcome is undefined.

[@BlahVideosBlahBlah]

Nothing silly about your excitement! Heck, I'm excited for you! An epiphany is still awesome even if it's very small! 🎉

[@sanjyuu2298]

Anything divided by 0 is basically an infinite large number, you can witness this by dividing something by the numbers that are trying to get close to zero (0.1, 0.01, 0.001 etc), the closer to 0 the larger outcome you get.

[@dw3403]

Zero divided by anything is of course 0. 1 divided by zero still leaves that 1 all by its little old self.

[@JLank-g5o]

​@@dw3403but 1 divided by 1 is 1 so how can 1 divided by 0 be 1

[@t5ruxlee210]

Mark Twain quote: "Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience."

[@MindofMatter]

"Do not engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed person" is another one I like

[@Vasu_Polu]

Knowledge and wisdom have limits but stupidity is truly boundless

[@slacker1]

@@Vasu_Polu You are so correct... (TRUE) Knowledge and wisdom is BASED on absolutes... Example: Man and Woman is an ABSOLUTE... Stupidity is based on ignorance: Romans 1:22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools... (The Bible)

[@x-man5056]

"Never argue with a pig. You'll both get dirty but the pig likes it."

[@Steve-fx2fb]

The idiots are "educating" our youth.

[@Grubbbee]

When my kid was in grade 1 or 2, the teacher taught them 2 - 3 = X (the letter, not as in algebra). When she had asked the class if it is possible to do 2- 3 my kid was the only one who put up her hand to say yes you can, and was told she was wrong. I emailed(correction: wrote a note to) the teacher saying I understood that she didn't want to teach kids about negative numbers in grade 2, but that telling my daughter she was incorrect was not ok. The next day the teacher went over it with the whole class and told my kid in front of everyone "you were right and i was wrong" and "you guys will learn about this next year". To this day the whole thing ended on a positive note and was a positive experience for my kiddo. There were no hard feelings.

[@Tenajeh]

Ugh same. There is so much crap being taught during the first two or three years in school. I remember being told that a small number minus a biggre number is unsolvable. Not tricky, not something that we learn later. Just unsolvable, period. I got scolded for naming letters of the alphabet by their names as my parents taught me. But instead of "Ah, beh, tseh, deh,..." in school I had to say "Ah, buh, tssss, duh, ...." Or else. It was fricking annoying. And ever since back then up to now, I never saw a reason to pick up my crushed respect for elementary school teachers.

[@LonicGheshu]

I can see why they might have wanted to avoid explaining what a negative number is, but the modern way to teach little ones is with number lines and creating a negative number by "jumping over" the zero would have been easy for the teacher to demonstrate. Much better than outright saying your child was wrong.

[@terrancat]

Teacher fucked up on the initial situation but seems like a good teacher.

[@LonicGheshu]

We had something similar with my daughter's teacher in primary school. My daughter is on the autistic spectrum and a lot of things were difficult for her at school. In maths she struggled with addition and subtraction. I spent time with her one weekend, using the classic column method (units, tens hundreds etc) and she got it almost immediately. She was calculating very large numbers easily and went to school proud with what she learned. Despite having the right answers the teacher told her she was wrong. At parents evening the teacher told me I was wrong for teaching my daughter that way because that year was all about number lines. I blew my stack. Teaching so rigidly could have set my daughter back that year and I'm glad that she was able to find a method that worked for her. That was a long time ago; she got a B at GCSE maths and has a science degree!

[@blackoak4978]

Why was this even a question asked of kids that age? Pretty simple to deal with it, don't mention it in the first place, and if any kids ask, tell them they will learn in more advanced classes

[@themblan]

Covering embarrassment with arrogance is the ultimate form of stupidity.

[@govcorpwatch]

Kruger-Dunning Phenomenon.

[@klassike]

It's not embarrassment, it's ignorance. I'm inclined to think that both the principal and the teacher genuinely don't know. It's the dumbing down of a generation.

[@jimjohnson394]

It is a skill every one of us has to learn when we are put into a position of authority. Whether a cop, a boss, a teacher, or a parent, we will eventually do something where we mess up and have to eat crow.

[@ResidentWeevil2077]

Sadly this is the trajectory society is heading and it's frightening to me.

[@thecryogenicdrummer1110]

@@klassike It's a club. The principal and the teacher are in an alliance against the parent. Our tribe must defeat their tribe, the winner is always correct.

[@joshuabowen316]

The most rage inducing thing imaginable is when someone in charge of you is blatantly wrong and just pulls a "because I said so"

[@ast.asutora]

the "womp womp" card is right there on this day and age 🤣

[@Risu0chan]

One of the most important lesson I learned at school is that, sometimes, adults can be completely clueless and ignorant. In 6th grade (11yo), I've been laughed at by my (catholic) religion teacher for telling her that the stars are immense balls of hot ionized gas, many of them much larger than the Sun. To her, stars were tiny specks of light, and that's it.

[@HoldupLetHimCook]

That teacher is an L

[@ahnaflfc369]

No way that guy is a teacher ☠☠ You should tell that to your science teacher

[@shahanshahpolonium]

Which country are you from, may I ask

[@Sg190th]

My 6th grade teacher said the Earth does a full rotation every day. Half by morning half by night. The classmate called her out LOL Edit: I meant Revolution. Enough with the inane replies.

[@Risu0chan]

@@shahanshahpolonium France

[@tedmabey1852]

I taught Algebra 2 before I retired several years ago. We were discussing a unit on Matricies and how to manipulate them. One day, a young lady raised her hand and said that was not how her father, a mechanical engineer, showed her how to do it. I could have said, her father was wrong, but, I asked her if she would like to come to the White board telestrator and show us all how her father taught her. She was reluctant, and I assured her she was not in trouble. She came up and did a wonderful job and provided the students with another way to rackle the problem I had not thought of. I thanked her and told the students I had learned something I had not known and it gave the students another way to solve that type of problem. I noticed the principal had slipped in half way through the student's explanation. She asked me later if I always have students help with the teaching, and I said yes, when the situation presents itself. She said, "You do know that's called peer teaching/learning, right"? I told her that's what I had learned in my Master's program and made it part of my Master's Thesis!! Nothing wrong with admitting you might not know everything as an educator!!!

[@zGoodMan187z]

You have effectively taught me something about Pride. Ego only makes you a weaker person not a stronger 1

[@br4524]

Thank you for being a true educator when I was very young and at about 1st grade lvl I was punished for using my photographic memory to learn math. It destroyed my confidence and put me behind a wall I've never been able to get past. I gave up on traditional schools at 17 and got my GED in 1985 I got very high grades in all except math. I did pass in top percentile in the other subjects. Math not so well. It still hurts so much. What could have been. Especially in science.

[@goosfrabaevony.4088]

Wish my teachers were like that. I got detention for correcting teachers (history) every year they talked about something not in the books and every year they got something wrong. Got alot of detention for it even after I showed proof

[@JaggerG]

@@br4524 A photographic memory is a highly valuable skill and should be celebrated. Unfortunately, math is hard, and sometime our best skills interfere in learning other skills. Just look at any brilliant person that has ADHD. They tend to excel early and struggle later. I once got sick and missed a lesson on long division, then came back to school and had a long division test. Got almost all the right solutions, but didn't actually use long division, so I failed the test. Luckily, that teacher had been a great one, and took me aside to actually teach me instead of punishing me. Too often, punishment is just assumed to be a valid teaching method just because it sometimes is, and turns out completely pointless.

[@jonathanjohnston9272]

​@@zGoodMan187z"Your ego is not your amigo"

[@glarynth]

In fairness, I might have had an easier time in life if I knew from an early age that people in authority are often wrong, and if I had been taught how best to handle that situation. Trying to correct them is seldom a winning strategy. An incident like this could be a teachable moment.

[@ME0WMERE]

yeah, unfortunately many people think they're always right if the person correcting them is young

[@jamescollier3]

Yeah. Anything like World Health Organization, World ....

[@ifbfmto9338]

If someone with authority over you is simply wrong….. and this happens in school, in business, in life……. There’s honestly not much you can do 🤷🏼‍♂️ the strategy of, calmly and logically explain to them why they’re wrong, almost never works

[@downstream0114]

Tell them to plug it into a calculator.

[@braddofner]

I always thought that X divided by zero would just be X. Thanks for clarifying that. I'm still confused why it's not X and why it's "undefined".

[@Frommerman]

You arrange a meeting, hand them a sheet of paper, and tell them to divide it into zero pieces. My 5th grade teacher did this with the kid who kept asking over and over why you can't divide by zero, and it's stuck with me.

[@terraincognita3749]

I love this approach, thanks!

[@ryuukakhadijah7766]

Genius

[@LindaLRosario]

When a teacher is good 😊

[@bigjolly1000]

👍

[@LysanderLH]

But that is not the question. The question is 1 divided by 0, not ‘how many zeros equal 1’ or any other permutation. 1 ‘apple’ which has not been divided into any other parts, is still 1 ‘apple’. Divided into two equal halves, is not 0 or 2 ‘apples’. Arguing that the parts the ‘apple’ could be divided into are not ‘apples’ themselves and therefore cannot be counted as 1 or any other twisted reasoning is not the solution.

[@ExtraJohnson]

A couple years ago, my daughter's 6th grade teacher tried to tell her a problem I helped her with was wrong and wouldn't accept my correction. So I went online and found the teacher's edition with all the answer keys, and it was wrong too. I emailed McGraw-Hill and they acknowledged the mistake, apologized, and fixed it. The teacher still refused to admit she was wrong.

[@shawntailor5485]

Due to the gravity of idiocy

[@omishimuzu]

I had this same issue with a teacher back in h.s, bit of back story, i had ADHD (still do) and the PEMDAS thing never made sense to me nor could i figure out any problems using that, so one day teach drops our usual 10 q's pop quiz and i decide to try my own method of working out the problems, aced all 10 questions but i was given a 0/10, even after walkimg the whole class through my steps, all of whom came to the same answer they had, just without using PEMDAS, but because my method wasnt "in the book" i was still wrong, didnt matter that my answers were 100% correct, i was failed because i didnt use the "approved" method, well i ended up suspended for 2wks, and she lost tenure because of that, i guess you cant call your teacher a stupid bitch who needed to go back to college without getting in trouble, and i guess you cant tell your boss you wanna kill a student and still keep your job😂😂😂😂

[@I_Am_Killer_B]

​@@omishimuzuThis never actually happened, did it?

[@jerryc3050]

Well, you put her on the spot and she refuses to correct her mistake despite irrefutable evidence-it became a tug of war between you and her and I NEVER would put any teacher in a spot.

[@ExtraJohnson]

@@jerryc3050 I didn't publicly call her out. It was a private discussion. I only even mentioned it because I want my kid to learn.

[@chm2]

The teacher and principal could at least punch that into any dollar store calculator and see that the result is error, and not 0. Ignorance plus arrogance is a deadly combination.

[@tianamarie989]

My phones calculator literally said you can't divide by 0. 😂😂

[@UCRjGzq33NDIz-YPwfuDBM8A]

@@tianamarie989 You got the pathetic reality. Even a machine is smarter than some of the teachers.

[@arnieljovero1008]

Mine says Error. I mean the Iphone calculator.

[@jasonbenso]

So infiniti is just undefined

[@richardbusta8899]

@@UCRjGzq33NDIz-YPwfuDBM8A that state meant is just stupid. Computers are "smarter" as you put it than the entire history of humanity. Only limited to stuff with a system already built.

[@portalomus]

We were taught in school that any number divided by zero is zero. Thank you for enlightening me and explaining it so well!

[@vc6984]

Now you can understand why the Federal Department of education needs to go.

[@MsVilecat]

I remember my Advanced Maths teacher (basically early calculus) showing us this answer, which was not in the curriculum whatsoever, with the intermittent joking of never dividing by zero or you might get sucked into an alternate dimension ("people divided by zero before and we've not heard or seen them since!"). He was a great teacher and knew how to make his class entertaining.

[@vicky4112]

Yes!. Zero cannot be used as a divisor.

[@snakevenom4954]

You can divide by 0, you just need more information is all. Because dividing by 0 gives you two answers. Infinity and negative infinity. That's why it's undefined, not impossible. "Divide 1 by 0 assuming you approach 0 from the positive side." This actually can be divided, giving you the answer of infinity

[@snakevenom4954]

@@poa2.0surface77 Buying something is not division. It's subtraction. But I'll explain why dividing by zero gives you both infinity and negative infinity. 1/1=1 1/0.1=10 1/0.01=100 1/0.001=1,000. As you get closer to 0, the result gets higher and higher. When you reach 0, you've reached infinity. Why this results in negative infinity is because it works the other way as well. 1/-1=-1 1/-0.1=-10 1/-0.01=-100 1/-0.001=-1,000. So as you reach 0, you also get negative infinity. This is why dividing by 0 is undefined. Not impossible.

[@vicky4112]

@@poa2.0surface77 In order for 1/0 = 1 to be true it would also have to be true that 1x 0 =1 and it does not. It equals 0

[@vicky4112]

@@poa2.0surface77 0 x1 means repetition of 0, 1 time which is 0, or it also means repetition of 1, 0 times which again is equal to 0. (hmmm, you know, the concept of nothing) Perhaps you've forgotten that multiplication is simply repeated additions.

[@regig.9493]

My daughter has a math teacher who has a bunch of kinder eggs with him at all times. Every time a pupil spots him making a mistake in a math calculation, that pupil gets a kinder egg.

[@creativenative5175]

What a great way to engage kids and keep them interested!

[@charlesmendeley9823]

It teaches critical thinking. They are trained to distrust his calculations and critically apply the rigorous concepts they have learned.

[@schrodingerscat1863]

And this is the kind of teacher we all remember for the rest of our lives. The one that engages us, the one that gets us to think critically about what is presented. Everyone should have a teacher like this but unfortunately most never experience it.

[@Nefariously_ignorant]

He'll be taken out by the government soon for teaching independent thought to children Can't be having that now, how could our governments indoctrinate them on social media if we teach them to think for themselves? It's just not fair

[@kenpullig1652]

I used to do similar in my junior high science classroom, changing up the prizes from time to time. Sometimes little plastic dinosaurs, bonus points, free time, etc. They were always hoping I'd make a mistake (and I usually did each period once a week or so...wink, wink).

[@earthwormscrawl]

In 4th grade (1969-1970) I got a "C" on a science presentation because I pointed out that the sun is a star and stars are distant suns. My teacher pointed out that this was ridiculous because anyone can see the difference between the sun and a star. When my son was in 4th grade his teacher tried to explain paramagnetism and totally screwed up the explanation. I explained how it worked to him for his homework and the teacher marked it as wrong. I set up and appointment and went in with the text from my graduate level electrical engineering class on electromagnetic fields and showed her the truth. (The fact that it was covered in a Master's of Electrical Engineering text should have tipped her off that she was not only clueless, but that she shouldn't have been covering the subject in a 4th grade class.). She was a clueless and stubborn as my 4th grade teacher. Edit: People keep commenting on semantics of the english language and how the teacher was right in the usage of the term "sun" vs. the term "star". They're missing the point that she was convinced that they were completely different types of physical entities and that a star wasn't the sun of it's solar system and that our sun wasn't a star to another solar system. In her words, the sun was as physically different from a star in its structure as it was from a planet. Stars would still appear to be a star (same size and brightness) even if they were the same distance from the earth as the sun.

[@rustyshackelford3371]

Why are you putting your kids through that? Why are you paying taxes supporting this?

[@pattimandache7440]

@@rustyshackelford3371 Because then they would go to prison for evading taxes? 😭😭

[@tuseroni6085]

first time through i misread this as as "tried to explain pragmatism" and wondered why you brought text from an electrical engineering class to explain pragmatism, then i looked again and it made sense.

[@dmitripogosian5084]

paramegnetism in 4th grade ? That is more than ambitious

[@Samstercraft77]

@@tuseroni6085 lol same

[@kokobopjammer2571]

I had to explain to my biology teacher that wolves disperse from their packs. She asks “doesn’t that make it harder for them to find a mate in their pack?” 💀 I had to tell her that wolf packs were family units and they (except for the breeding pair) are all siblings. I mean i know it’s not common knowledge but if you’re gonna teach about wolves (as a bio teacher no less) you should do your research so a freshman doesn’t have to correct you.

[@will.green.]

maybe your teachers parents didnt disperse from their pack

[@thane9]

I'm convinced the absolute best thing a teacher can teach is how to accept being wrong. Everyone makes mistakes and modeling how you handle making a mistake is a critical lesson that too many people haven't learned. Normalizing failure, mistakes, losing, or just plain old being wrong, is something our culture (particularly the US) NEEDS.

[@mr.dr.kaiser4912]

Refusing to admit fault is also a fantastic way to get your students to hate you. I'm still pissed at a history teacher who gave me a zero on an all or nothing quiz because of one question that I didn't get wrong. He was wrong, but refused to admit it and my grade suffered. It's been years but I'm still mad about it.

[@nickyalousakis3851]

kudos to the host of leaving the silly school politics out. imo the organic answer that cannot be calculated or arrived at by formula is - one. for example if there is one pie and there are zero people sharing the pie..... you have one pie. this is a rare example in mathematics where you truly have to think outside the box.

[@Aaron_1112]

Is it possible to graph a decimal in Cartesian plane?

[@nickyalousakis3851]

@@Aaron_1112-- yes it's possible.... i've done this on an boeing plane.

[@celestemichon1038]

If you have one apple and you divided by no apples, how many apples do you have one apple?

[@thomasw.eggers4303]

I've been there when I was in high school. Reason and logic won't work. It will require AUTHORITY. You can try a Wikipedia reference or a college text book. But a letter from a college professor (with all his/her degrees mentioned along with papers publiched), copied to the principal and to your kid, is probably the most effective. Don't get worked up, but also don't give up. You can also turn it into a lesson for your kid: adults are not always right.

[@neosharkey7401]

I would just pull my kid aside and say “mr. teacher is an idiot” and explain the concept myself.

[@mirtinhoxereto1748]

Schools are small gulags of a socialist system.

[@S8EdgyVA]

I would just change schools, especially since in the last year we’ve seen a lot of people who agree with me that if people in charge are doing stupid things, you best off going to places where they’re not in charge

[@thomasw.eggers4303]

@@S8EdgyVA This is too small an issue to change schools over. But if there are a lot of these, then perhaps. In a large city, changing schools might be possible, but in a small city, no. I grew up in a city of around 10,000, which was the biggest city in 100 miles. The next high school was 25 miles away.

[@melody3741]

“Reason and logic won’t work” The one person in the comments who gets it

[@JohnSmith-vk9ds]

As someone who struggled with math in my younger years, learning the foundations is extremely important. Mathematic principles compound on each other so if you don't understand the simple concepts, you will never understand the more complex ones. The teacher and the principal were both very wrong, and it is very important that they be corrected for the sake of all the kids that they are teaching.

[@heroclix0rz]

I think it's clear they were a regular principal, not a mathematic principal...

[@solarsynapse]

Yeah, there are many thousands of people that think you can spend your way out of debt.

[@Number6_]

Ignorance of math is no excuse! Any one who says different is a ignorant peasant and will be treated as one.

[@Number6_]

@@solarsynapse all of them Americans.

[@LoLFilmStudios]

They wouldn’t be teaching little kids if they ware capable. We respect teachers but that doesn’t make them geniuses, far from that. Anyone who’s average or even slightly below can teach children. Capable children will achieve success regardless. World is full of excuses.

[@flandersnatch2285]

If i have one apple and i divide it between zero people, the apple ceases to exist and enters a hellish micro dimention when it will be forever tortured by long division

[@Bettinasisrg]

This is a great time to teach your child that teachers can also be incorrect and to always keep an open mind and question the experts! Thanks for an amazing explanation!

[@TheRythimMan]

Clearly this teacher is not "the expert". It doesn't take any type of expertise at all to know you can't divide anything by 0 (aside from this video explaining it very well all you have to do is just think about it for like 5 seconds). The teacher and the principal are idiots.

[@DivergentDroid]

Most teachers learn the lesson plan just before the class and forget it after the class is over. They just regurgitate what is on the lesson without critical thought or really knowing the subject. There was none of this undefined crap when i was in school. 3 divided by nothing at all is still 3 because you did not do anything to it to divide it. Same with 1 divided by 0 which is 1. I was taught any number divided by zero is always going to be that number as it cannot be anything else. To say it's undefined when it really is easily defined is Really Dumb.

[@TheRythimMan]

@@DivergentDroid I mean that's not really...how it works. Undefined isn't a new concept, you just weren't taught it before.

[@DivergentDroid]

@@TheRythimMan I don't care what you say because you don't have the mental capacity to know how stupid it is. If you have 5 fingers and you take nothing away from them meaning you do not divide or split them at all, you still have 5 fingers. It's the exact same as dividing by zero. It's essentially telling you, you are not dividing anything at all from anything. Now I do understand why you cannot see the problem, you are taught by your uneducated teachers that you live on a sphere in a vacuum that has a sphere shaped atmosphere that fails to behave as gas laws and the laws of thermodynamics tell us gas must behave. You already believe so many lies you cannot see a fact in front of your face.

[@invisibilianone6288]

@@DivergentDroid Someone with a brain🎯😎☕

[@terriblepainter7675]

What a great life lesson. He learns that most authority figures are not necessarily intelligent and just because they are in authority positions doesn’t mean they are right.

[@laughingoutloud3713]

jep politicians are prime example

[@looneymar9153]

Last lesson to learn is "just because they're wrong doesn't mean the situation allows you to ignore their authority", the harshest one

[@whirltech8031]

Yeah primes them for working for CEOs for the rest of their lives.

[@fueradelmeta]

Most authorities are just people born in the right family.

[@jonathanjensen189]

Imagine only learning when you're an adult that adults are still idiots...

[@kumarillo1]

my third grade teacher was trying to tell us that texas was bigger than alaska just because the map she showed us had alaska in the corner, not to scale. it was a real confidence booster proving her wrong

[@niello5944]

Many people don't realise that maps have to adjust size to be able to coherently project what's on a globe to a rectangle. More people should be aware of that as a common knowledge...

[@An.Unsought.Thought]

Yeah maps are projections. They are never to scale. There are a few interesting and well designed maps that attempt to show everything to scale though. Not useful outside of that specific purpose though. Although I suppose a globe would be more accurate.

[@viktoriyaserebryakov2755]

@@An.Unsought.Thought Why do people not just own globes.

[@Leispada]

the number of people that get this wrong and don't even know.. is too damn high!

[@mrtechie6810]

Ah, Mr Mercator

[@Waabimakwa]

Sue the teacher and principal and school board. That level of incompetence cannot be tolerated.

[@Honojane12]

My son has a tee shirt that says, "It's all fun and games until someone divides by zero."

[@erikfritts8240]

😊he must like computers

[@Em_Rey]

Lmao nice 👌

[@GamerplusMore]

Nerd

[@jones4150]

I need a shirt like that 😂

[@Sightless-vz2wh]

Well 1 / 0 is infinitely if you’re talking about limits and I definitely enjoy limits but that’s not a third grade level. 🤓

[@norainid.2970]

As a teacher myself, if there is a question I don't know the answer to when asked by my students, I straight up tell them I don't know and we'll look up the answer together.

[@rosc2022]

Much respect for your willingness to question and check. I had a doc (MD - and you know their rep for having the god complex) one time who listened to my description, flipped open a book, and showed me a picture. "Is this what you're seeing," he asked me. "Yes." I was so impressed. Clear comms. Good info. Correct diagnosis and treatment. Same story, much respect.

[@mikestone5595]

But Nenah Cherry asked her teacher why the sky was blue and not white, and the teacher wouldn't answer her.

[@norainid.2970]

@@mikestone5595 maybe because the teacher doesn't know the answer to it. Don't assume teachers know the answer to everything. I personally like when my kids asks questions no matter how ridiculous those questions maybe.

[@stickyfox]

Your job isn't to know everything. You just have to teach our kids how to find out anything. And it sounds like you're doing that!

[@peterrose5373]

"It's not what you don't know that gets you in trouble, it's what you do know that just ain't so" --possibly Twain?

[@totallyfrozen]

I’m embarrassed for the principal. The teacher CC’d the principal for leadership and what came in return was support of an error rather than a proper correction.

[@dtreezy]

Most teachers at my high school are barely older than the students. Its really weird

[@valeriereneeharper]

What does the principal know? He/she isn’t teaching math……shouldn’t the principal have gone to another for the answer?

[@johnj8069]

@@valeriereneeharper I assume that the principal has graduated high school and hopefully at least a four year college... Everybody who has graduated high school should know the answer. This must be unique to the US and some third world countries where totally ignorant people can get education jobs.

[@boogeyratt]

@@johnj8069 Anyone who graduated grade school ought to know the answer. This is basic math, not advanced.

[@W81Researcher]

​@@dtreezybecause a lot of sorry students becoming teachers.

[@LaurenGlenn]

Reminds me of a teacher who was teaching us calculus and when we solved his equation, the value when put back in the original equation ended up dividing by zero. I told him that this meant that the answer then becomes "the empty set." He marked me wrong and told me that I was wrong. I told him to put his answer in the equation and tell me if he gets the proper answer. He told me to get out. Some battles are worth having.... sometimes you let it go and tell your kid sometimes teachers are wrong.

[@bilbot.baggins9019]

I think a good way to describe division is as repeated subtraction, essentially how many times you have to subtract the divisor from the dividend to get zero. If 1/0 was in fact zero, that would imply that zero subtracted from one zero times would be zero, which implies that one is equal to zero, which makes sense when you consider how many teachers this kid has in theory, versus how many he has in reality

[@CrossJComic]

I prefer the opposite strategy (which essentially means how many times do you have to add up the number you're dividing for so it will be equalled to the number being divided)

[@demotics2005]

This is what I taught my kids. How many times will you take zero from one until there's nothing left? This should give them the idea that they can subtract forever and 1 still remains. The answer therefore is not zero.

[@iota8732]

I actually love this, thanks

[@cend2362]

very funny but let's not slander her as its probably just a small mistake

[@sebastianpereyra1466]

​@@CrossJComicnorth tecnically the same, both have the idea that the 2 numbers need to have a difference of 0

[@azranger7294]

"It's easier to win an argument with a genius than with a fool." - Idk who it was but it's true

[@ErokCherokee]

Mark Twain?

[@clairetellkamp6253]

@@ErokCherokee No, nobody said that. You're probably thinking of "Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience." Which people CLAIM is a Mark Twain quote, but Mark Twain never said anything like that in his life. It's ultimately a common sentiment that slowly adapted over time, and it may have roots in Proverbs 26:4

[@SuperRodriguez2005]

Or " Who is the bigger fool? The fool? Or the one who argues with the fool?"

[@jacobkooster7348]

"It's easier to win an argument with a genius than a fool." -azranger7294

[@westonding8953]

This is why cancel culture is horrific you can’t reason with the people who want to “cancel” others.

[@Piochasinchina]

I remember my daughter’s biology teacher once told her that corals are plants. We talked and she doubled down and also got the principal involved. In my experience a lot of teachers just make stuff up instead of saying “I don’t know” or looking it up and then their pride gets in the way. This is why I really respect teachers who love what they do and are really interested in their students’ learning process instead of just going through the motions.

[@aolsweetsew]

I knew of a teacher that taught that the earth was flat, after watching the Apollo landing on TV. Teachers, like parents, are fallible. Thank goodness the vast majority of teachers are competent.

[@thepitpatrol]

Teachers are not the best salesmen for a college education.

[@DennisKovacich]

My high school biology teacher taught us the parts of the eye: the black dot in the middle is the pupil, the colored part around that is the cornea, and the white part around that is the iris. If I hadn’t learned the proper parts, I would have been so confused when Stargate:SG1 came out and they’d “close the iris” to stop someone from coming in.

[@613harbinger316]

Situations like that are teachable moments. If you don't know, teach them _how_ to find out. "I'm not sure. Let's find out together (but without Wikipedia)."

[@angelachouinard4581]

Back in 1970 my mom worked for the assistant principal at the high school. One day a kid who usually came in because of causing trouble came to ask my mom for help. He said the math teacher couldn't explain & help with a problem & he was really trying to do his work so he could get a job he wanted. My mom got the advanced math teacher to help him. That teacher said the problem was the other guy was an education major. He said more and more teachers were getting a degree in education instead of getting a degree in a subject then taking the extra classes to get a teaching credential. Think how much things have gone downhill in our schools since then.

[@EastSaxon-o7s]

I am amazed at how much discussion this maths problem has generated.

[@sdickinson5234]

When I was in the third grade I used the verb "trudge" in a sentence I wrote for a grammar exercise, meaning "walk slowly and with heavy steps, typically because of exhaustion or harsh conditions". My teacher took off a point and accused me of making up the word. The word was not in her pocket dictionary.

[@blasphemer_amon]

Not a scrabbler that's for sure

[@PinkieSugar]

I remember in 5th grade i learned the proverb "all work and no play makes jack a dull boy" from reading little house on the prairie. I used it in an essay and was proud of myself for being able to include something I learned all by myself. My teacher docked me points and said using that phrase was too advanced for my grade. Same teacher also sat me next to the troublemaker kid to "control" him and scolded ME when the boy cheated by copying answers from my tests.

[@ButMadNNW626]

I think I was in first grade when I was talking about a book I’d read and verbally used the phrase “horse’s foreleg” because I’d learned it from the book. My teacher just looked at me for a second and slowly said, “Yes… horses have… four legs…” That’s the first time I can recall thinking that an adult was dumb for not knowing something I knew.

[@chickenlover657]

Damn dude, that's harsh, wish I could have lent you my mother for the occasion, she woulda rattled that teacher outta her socks. Her life would never be the same.

[@chickenlover657]

@@PinkieSugar Jesus Christ, don't y'all have parents to go shake down the principal?

[@bluesteelgaming2883]

I didnt understand this concept until I heard somebody say that 0 is a placeholder for "nothing". Then I reread the question as "one divided by nothing." How many times can nothing fit into 1? No answer.

[@rustyshackleford3487]

To infinity, and beyond!

[@MrCmon113]

But it isn't. And then it wouldn't make sense for "nothing" to be part of any operation.

[@KittynFranky7643]

Thanks for explaining it in a "dummy" way. I finally understand. My son is a maths teacher and he didn't get thru to me. 🌟

[@koolkevin2357]

@@MrCmon113 You are right.

[@timopper5488]

That’s a great explanation! I didn’t even know that. That makes a ton of sense! So 0 isn’t an amount; instead it represents a complete absence of anything that even could be quantifiable. Have I paraphrased that accurately?

[@charlesmartinjr3971]

I remember learning this fact (that you can't divide by zero) in elementary school. The fact that both the teacher AND the principal got this wrong is really disturbing.

[@RScott413]

They don't even teach math properly anymore from my perspective. Oddly enough I was one of just a few kids that liked proving math because my dad was so into computers, even in the 70s. it was nuts but to this day that old school math is used in my tech job with scripting so I still have interest but I had to show my own child how to do it against the public school process. Education has fallen off the deep end, today 2x2=oppression.

[@omnipresentvideo7686]

I was taught this it is 0. I'm 40. Nothing has changed.

[@franny5295]

Well, I honestly forgot so I appreciate the reminder.

[@mechadoggy]

@@Kitsuragi556True, it’s very possible that this teacher and principal don’t even exist

[@TurnipTroll]

@@Kitsuragi556 As much as I hope you’re correct about this it wouldn’t surprise me that was a true, unembellished story. I went through ALL of elementary, junior high, high school, and college (with a bachelor’s in the STEM area) with a miss understanding of the order of operations because my 2nd grade teacher taught it improperly. Failed to mention that multiplication and division were equal to each other. The same with addition and subtraction. Always thought it was parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division, addition, and then subtraction; Only in that order not the correct way of parentheses, exponents, multiplication/division (left to right), and then addition/subtraction (left to right). I don’t know how no teacher ever noticed/cared Kindergarten to Collegiate to correct me. It took a fricken KZbin video that I stumbled across accidentally and subsequent investigation for me learn a basic math rule.

[@Hereticalization]

Explained math better than any math teacher I had in my entire life. Gave the how and the why to the math problem. I really appreciate your teaching style.

[@OmegaZyion]

Once while my teacher in high school was preparing the class for the SAT, I mentioned to her that one of the geometry problems had two answers. It was a question where you had to identify which pattern of boxes could be folded into a cube. There was one obvious one and one wonky one that no one else in the class picked. The teacher didn't believe me when I told her the other selection also formed a cube, so the next day I brought a cut out of the pattern and folded it into a cube in front of her and the entire class. The teacher still wouldn't believe that the SAT would make a mistake like that. Some people are just mindless drones happy to be living in ignorance.

[@wade2112]

Not math related, but still ignorance related. In 2011 I wrote a 7 page biography on Barack Obama for a paper. We were using TurnItIn to check for plagiarism, plagiarism checkers were fairly new. 5% of my paper was paraphrased from sources I used. 47% of my paper was similar to over 50 other student's papers because Obama was a very hot topic, after all there's only a few ways to write "Obama was the 44th president" Anyways she refused to believe I didn't source 50 other papers and paraphrase 1 sentence from each so I got -52% for plagiarism 😒. I feel bad for students who might get false flagged for AI papers today

[@winstonsmiths2449]

Yes, they are called democrats!

[@adboss10]

It's obviously too late now but I would just point out to the teacher all the times in which the SAT has been wrong in the past and been correctly called out by students, not teachers. Veritasium just posted a video about a notable example of it.

[@maj1395]

That's crazy because I always thought those "which one is a cube" questions were insanely easy

[@WaterCrane]

The fact you went to the effort to actually make that cube net and demonstrate it shows you're going to go far if you ever take up a STEM subject! You're willing to physically test a hypothesis!

[@TechnoMageB5]

As a trained course supervisor in a past life, one policy we were taught was to never hide a mistake from the student. Reason: a mistake uncorrected in the student is then potentially repeated countless times by the student in application, leading to bad results. NOT acknowledging the error and correcting it is the academic equivalent of crippling that student, potentially for life, on that lesson. It is an evil act. Teachers that would rather protect their egos than do a little research to ensure their student gets the most out of the lesson have no business teaching anyone.

[@superdave8248]

There were a few cases in my childhood where I still remember when a teacher gave inaccurate information and I corrected her on it. Needless to say, those acts lead to her spending the rest of the school year bullying me in front of the other students. And when I did correct the misinformation? The class was told I was in the wrong. To this day I still resent that teacher and I'm damn near a senior citizen.

[@cybersal7]

Only fair that her old bones are probably moldering

[@dickjohnson5979]

Even gameshows will correct an error on their part and either give back money lost or let a contestant play again.

[@superdave8248]

@@dickjohnson5979 It has been a while since I have watched game shows, but I do recall this very thing happening. And always after a commercial break. I suspect either a contestant questioned it or one of their experts reviewing the game would question it. And would then follow it up. I've recall the game show evening giving credit if the answer was too vague and acknowledging a poorly worded answer lending to doubt.

[@karenopet1223]

I used to substitute and was certified in math k-12. The amount of teachers that would teach the kid the wrong thing was unbelievable. They should be ashamed of themselves

[@Warhawk76]

As a middle and high school teacher I have no issue telling students that I dont have an answer, or admitting that when I am wrong. We have to model good behavior if we expect students to learn how to be adults.

[@JohnJaneson2449]

Kids need to know that there are problems unanswered so far, and that one day someone will answer then and that someone could be them. A

[@dackhornbold1728]

I'm sorry to say that most public school teachers are modeling insanity and intolerance to our children and they are learning it very well judging by how the current generation is looting, rioting, burning, and beating people in the streets.

[@Wildkakahuette]

one ofbmy teacher was like that "hey, i dont know the awnser to your question but i'll search it" and then was always coming back with it or searching it with us if we had time :)

[@Sleeptastic]

The problem is the teacher probably believed that the answer is 0, not that they didn't know

[@WlmaAlexender-zl6nx]

3rd grade teacher here, I have worked in various schools back when I subbed all the time. I have seen countless teachers who were pure ego, teaching nothing, but thought they were the masters of the universe. I try to give my students the tools to do well in higher grades and a happy childhood (2 things I wish I had been given). I hope when mine leave me they get a good teacher like yourself.

[@MarkMcCullough-y5s]

I was taught any number divided by 0 is undefined but must be regarded as zero for mathematical continuity. However I was taught dividing any number by a number less than one and approaching zero goes to infinity. This breaks down when you consider Einstein's mass - velocity relationship where a dust particle would reach infinite mass as it's velocity approaches the speed of light.

[@MaximeB-hc4oz]

Yeah, viewing 1/0 as 0 definitely doesn't help mathematical continuity 😅 Going from results converging towards infinity to zero

[@MarkMcCullough-y5s]

@MaximeB-hc4oz I've concluded that dividing by zero means no division ever happened and can't happen.

[@Ronster-cf2mp]

I taught Engineering Mathematics fundamentals, at the collegiate level, and ended up creating a remedial, math course for nearly 2/3rds of these students to help them 'unlearn' fallacies taught in the public, school system. Students are not being properly prepared for the rigors of higher education; They are being prepared to pass tests...

[@garthornspike3648]

Eliminate school taxes and make parents solely responsible for paying for their children's "education" and the schools would be forced to change their approach.

[@JohnAshley-d6l]

And things not falling down is quite basic!

[@amspook]

​@@garthornspike3648Yeah, that won't work

[@BeardOfRiker]

@@garthornspike3648”Only the wealthy should get an education” is a wildly stupid idea.

[@tr1bes]

@@garthornspike3648 that's not going to work. The rich would hog all the better teachers while the majority of us middle/low and peasants would get mediocre lower status, fish (newbie) teachers. The best way is to invest in higher education or outside education from the public school. It's an add on. That way, the student can be ahead of current level. Many Asian parents put more classes like math, reading and etc in the East.

[@waterbug1135]

Most amazing part is how he switches between red and blue markers so fast without a mistake.

[@PanoptesDreams]

I didn't realize it until you said it. But it also helped with following what was being explained. This guy is a really good teacher.

[@ImNotLuthien]

He truly a wizard with the markers.

[@TheSpeep]

I managed to teach myself how to switch between two pens while holding them both in the same hand like that at some point in middle or highschool. The next year tho, I'd completely forgotten how I did it, and I still cant do it anymore.

[@KnightYoshi]

I mean I knew he used different colors, I didn't even realize he did it seamlessly. That was smooth as soft butter

[@waterbug1135]

@@PanoptesDreamsExactly. It did help a lot and the transition so quick there was no distraction yet the color change did make it more clear. Was like a magic show. At first I thought the colors were changed in post with digital editing. Nope.

[@5-Volt]

Some of my favorite teachers when I was in school were the ones that weren't afraid to say "I dont know" & then would look into the information in question. Then I would learn with them.

[@smadaf]

I was very fortunate to spend all four years of high school at a school where most of my teachers were excellent. My teacher in Honors English 9, Mrs. W., was not especially fun or warm, but she also wasn't mean-and her basic attitude toward knowledge and learning was right. About halfway through ninth grade, Mrs. W. stopped teaching, for some reason (illness?). Her replacement for the rest of the year, Mrs. E., was the mother of one of my schoolmates. Mrs. E. was no dummy, and she seemed nicer than Mrs. W.-but her attitude toward knowledge and learning was pretty lame. After the end of ninth grade, I was happy to be done taking classes from Mrs. E. By the end of twelfth grade, I'd had more opportunity to notice one of the particular things wrong with Mrs. E's approach. For all four years of high school, I'd taken some classes from Mrs. H.: she taught four years of French (of which I took three) and Journalism and A.P. English (for which I had her) and Shakespeare (ditto). For some reason, not even halfway through that school-year, the Shakespeare class was moved: Mrs. H. stopped teaching it, and now Mrs. E. taught it. (Maybe they knew Mrs. H. wasn't going to teach many more years, and maybe they wanted some overlap in which Mrs. E. could learn to be a Shakespeare teacher while still having Mrs. H. around for guidance.) The point of my ramble here is the contrast between Mrs. H. and Mrs. E.: • In _all_ the classes I took under Mrs. H., if anyone asked a relevant question (or even an only mildly related interesting question) and Mrs. H. didn't know the answer, her response was basically "That's a good question. I don't know. Let's find out"-and then we'd start digging in the books in her classroom, other kids would chime in with ideas, maybe someone would run to the library to look something up there. • In _both_ of the classes I took under Mrs. E., if anyone asked a question and Mrs. E. didn't know the answer, her response was basically to toss you a not unkind combination of words and facial expression that nonetheless said "I don't know. Who cares? What a strange person you are, for wondering something like that", followed by something like "Let's get back to the text." There is value in staying focused on the task at hand-but, as I'm sure you can tell, I preferred (and still prefer) Mrs. H's approach. Sitting in Mrs. E's class was not torture, but it was only something to tolerate (and to avoid if you could)-whereas Mrs. H. was a pleasure, for four years.

[@abhiruproy1170]

Those are the people who have earned the right to be called "teachers"

[@baltakatei]

Sounds like you got wealthy teachers who didn't have to teach.

[@bluenomadbruh]

​@@baltakateiit is called maturity and humility. Wealth has nothing to do with it.

[@Nordic_Mechanic]

absolutely right ! Makes the teacher relatable and closer to the students

[@blanc5565]

I know I'm late on this but I had this argument with my teacher in high school of the same thing and I did this If 1/0 = 0 -------- equation (1) We know 0/1=0 -------- equation (2) Then that means 1/0=0/1 (as a=b, b=c then a=c) => 1=0 which is not possible She said no, I'm wrong and left if I remember correctly

[@MaximeB-hc4oz]

Don't know if it's my brain refusing to work, but I can't link a/b = b/a and a=b. However, you can see a/b = b/a a= b²/a, in this case 1 = 0²/1, which is still 1 = 0, so it works

[@blanc5565]

@MaximeB-hc4oz yea that's true

[@bprpmathbasics]

The answer is NOT 1. Dividing by 0 is not the same as “do not divide”. Please see 2:46 again. 1 divided by 0 is undefined because we can’t have a number that multiplies with 0 to get us 1.

[@darrenjpeters]

Rubbish. The answer is 1. Divide 1 by nothing, and you end up with 1, because it's undivided. Zero equals nothing.

[@stefanogiovannini8502]

“Math is a tool to solve problem in reality”. No, and thanks God it’s not that. It’s ALSO that, but not all knowledge derives from a practical problem. We can use reason and create math just for the pleasure of it, and sometimes what we built just as an exercise get used in a problem from reality

[@Apixi]

I'm horrible at math and even I remember "undefined". We are in serious trouble😮

[@34powerman]

​@darrenjpeters it won't work on a calculator it says can't divide by 0🤔 so 1 divided by 0 is 1 because it's not been divided by a number

[@sucullentsbythesea2690]

In simple terms if you have one thing and nothing divided it then the same thing still is. Mathematicians like to make up their own stupid shit to reason the fact they cannot figure out how the universe is made by numbers(because they are not God)

[@henripan9584]

I taught pharmacology at a nursing school. One day I decided to take a master's course in pharmacology, just for the sake of it and to see what new material I could pick up, at a university. My very first test I scored a 59. I was shocked. No way, I scored a 59. I know my pharmacology. I went over the test and wrote to the professor explaining why my wrong answers were actually right and cited medical textbooks. Needless to say, my score of 59 was changed to 98%. The scary part is that there are teachers out there teaching that do not know their material and they are wronging right answers. At a college level, that is very detrimental to the students considering that it impacts their whole future. Maybe that is why we do not have smart people running the country, because all the right ones were wronged.

[@therocinante3443]

I work in a hospital and I can say with full confidence that the doctors are the dumbest people there.

[@kathleencove]

Good working theory. I remember being very frustrated with this as a kid too, a lot of language teachers don’t know what they’re doing either, just like math and science teachers unfortunately.

[@davidmende4438]

This explains why I flunked out. Thank you!!!!

[@TranceFur]

To be successful in America, all you need is to be confident, convincing, and loud. Helps to be good looking too. Intelligence barely plays any factor.

[@telquel7843]

Less so at the college level, but often teachers are not given a choice of what they teach but rather have to teach what nobody else wants or administration doesn't have a specialist for. At least where I live, nurses make far more money than teachers do and even more than all but senior professors. So where is the incentive? Society does not value teachers much these days. I wouldn't become a teacher even though I realize how important it is.

[@PNWJEEPER01]

I’ll be 49 years old in a few months. When I was a kid I could not wrap my head around long division. I could always come up with the correct answer; just couldn’t explain it on paper. My 5th grade teacher decided that I was just refusing to put out the effort to show my work and disciplined me by putting my desk against the back wall of the classroom facing the opposite direction as everybody else’s desks and would make me stay at my desk during recess and lunch. I was traumatized and shamed by the experience and never learned long division. I use equations all the time in my work, but I have all of these hacks to avoid long division. I’ve even been afraid of needing to know it and embarrassed because I don’t. Until I watched this video today. I totally get it now. It’s so simple! Thanks, man.

[@encycl07pedia-]

Man, I'm sorry. Your teacher should have been fired and your parents should have talked to him/her.

[@betenoireindustries]

i'll be 49 in five days and in my school district, that teacher would've been a goner for even saying something that humiliating to a kid. geez, my *mom* would probably have beaten the tar out of them personally. did you go to a crappy abusive christian school or something?

[@zkittlezthabanditt604]

I've never grasped long division myself

[@tsoliot5913]

Long division is functionally useless. It's a conceptual dead end, a calculation heuristic developed so people don't have to comprehend the principlesat play in division. Better to skip it and learn algebra.

[@jeannieruiz3263]

I taught my students repeated subtraction first. They could reason out answers even when the algorithm for long division got confusing (fractions and decimals and money). Long division is the nonsensical shortcut we use that should never be taught until kids understand decimals beyond hundredths.

[@needparalegal]

When I was in 4th grade it was infinity, then in college they told me it was undefined.

[@FindTheFun]

My brother once told a cool story to his 6th grade teacher about how he caught a preying mantis over the weekend and watched it fly away when he let it go. The teacher told him to stop lying because mantises can't fly. That day during their library time my brother printed out some images of preying mantises flying and showed it to his teacher all proud. He got a detention for wasting paper and ink.

[@TheImpossibleCube]

What a horrible teacher:(

[@Real_JKDOS]

petty teacher. Probably the same type of person to downvote everything they read on Reddit

[@woahhbro2906]

This type of behavior from teachers is dangerous because kids can end up becoming disillusioned and not trusting any teachers and become rebellious while sabotaging their own education. I remember resenting teachers after my kindergarten teacher got into trouble for beating me until it drew blood. I carried that hatred all the way through up to high school.

[@TheImpossibleCube]

@@woahhbro2906 Kindergarden teachers beating you up?! That's untolerable!

[@justaguy-69]

when i was in grade 5 i spent rainy days drawing diagrams i found in our encyclopedias, my favorite was the inside of a high pressure sodium bulb, it reminded me of a space ship or lunar module in miniature. one day during recess i found an actual real life high pressure sodium bulb behind the school in a landfill area! it was still in the cardboard and new, i was so excited, i imagined removing the glass and mounting it on a piece of wood for display, i was so excited! my 5th grade teacher saw it in my hand and took it away from me ,when i told her it was a high pressure sodium bulb and i made a diagram of one at home, she yelled YOU HAVE SUCH A VIVID IMAGINATION ! and acted very angry and stole my find. i had never heard the word "vivid" before and it caused me to pause, (making a mental note to later look that up) but i felt like she was calling me a liar. i told my mother and big brother when i got home and my brother said it was worth $40 and she probably took it to the electric company , my mother didnt support me or talk to the teacher or anything. that teacher was very violent and beat me with a wooden paddle once a week all school year. her name was Mrs. Carter in hobart indiana at ridge view elementary school.i learned nothing at school that year(but i did at home!) i lost all interest in school after that but i quit at 12th grade and went to night school in merrillville indiana and graduated early from there since i only needed one more credit.

[@PanoptesDreams]

Reddit post aside, you just taught division in less than two minutes better than ALL of my time in school.

[@bales1569]

I mean you’re a grown up now, with greater cognitive depth to be able to easily comprehend what is said. Your teachers probably taught you the same way

[@braydos1578]

​@@bales1569I've never understood long division through all of my schooling, and never had it taught to me in an understandable (to me) way. Watching this, it just clicked. And I don't believe I am much smarter than when I left high school 3 years ago

[@richardbusta8899]

@@braydos1578 you actually are you don't realize but most people use basic math almost every day. Don't just put yourself down you should recognize that you are more intelligent.

[@nickyalousakis3851]

he taught the old school way.... today is the new math..... the old math is racist. lol sorry had to say it.

[@Badgerinary]

Im not out of school and same

[@zeph0shade]

My younger brother once had a teacher who asked the class to name units of distance, and my brother offered "lightyear" and was told that it was a unit of time, not distance. He mentioned it to me after getting home that day, and I told him that he was right, but there definitely is a common problem where teachers will simply state whatever sounds correct to them as if it were absolutely true, even if it's on a subject they know less than nothing about.

[@joefaller4525]

I remember that answer from 5th grade. I guess the teacher can't get past the "year" part of the dimension.

[@Prophet1cus]

@@joefaller4525 Just like many people can't get past the hour part of kiloWattHour. When you add in that 1 Watt is 1 Joule/second they are completely lost.

[@hellboy19991]

I learned that one in pokemon. The guy in brocks gym makes a comment on lightyears and when you beat him he corrects himself or something like that

[@RubberStig]

Is not the definition of a lightyear "the distance light travels in a year"? I think the teacher needs to go back to school.

[@saoudahmed9665]

Lightyear is time . Because you can’t pass over 1 year

[@irenebaker5930]

I am 56 years old when I was in school they taught us anything by 0 is 0. Now how they do it, it’s undifined

[@xHelloSushix]

Just like genders…🥹 I’m just going to stand by 0.

[@nzdefrag]

54 here and remember 'undefined' clearly. Did you go to the same school as that poor student?

[@DanildFlamme]

What the parent should do in this situation: Look it up in a proper math-book written for adults, and show it to the teacher and principal. And if they are insane enough to refuse the content of a proper math-book, then you need to consider changing your kids school, because that tells a lot about that school.

[@khatdubell]

Or just skip to the end. Change schools.

[@nevaehhamilton3493]

​@@khatdubell yes

[@DanildFlamme]

@@khatdubell I think it would be fair to give them a chance to realize, that they had misunderstood some basic math, and then rectify it... And I would be surprised if they would still double down, if shown in a proper math-book.

[@khatdubell]

@@DanildFlamme But they _had_ that chance. And they _did_ double down.

[@JamesJamersonIsAGod]

Even simpler. Ask them to pull out their cell phone and show you that 1 divided by 0 equals 0. When their “all knowing” device’s calculator throws an Error they should be sufficiently bamboozled into capitulating that the problem is not as straight as they thought.

[@sattymike0155]

Unimpressed that the teacher immediately punted to the Principal because a parent questioning or challenging can’t be handled by a simple conversation.

[@lha816]

Bet the head teacher is fed up of her, they have enough on their plate without having to deal with another staff members incompetency of dealing with a situation

[@OldNavajoTricks]

That's because they aren't a teacher, they only dole out what they are told to so them understanding it themselves is not required, I'd even go so far to say that it is discouraged. 😂

[@gloweye]

It's quite possible that the principal thought dividing by zero results in zero, the teacher disagreed, and the teacher got ordered to teach it like that. So as soon as someone complains, the teacher makes it the principal's problem.

[@LaurenGlenn]

The teacher went to the principal who answered it like when his wife asks him a question and he just doesn't want to deal with it. So he sides with the teacher to end it. I've had enough bosses who just couldn't care less and do that. Mostly guys. Women tend to yell when you prove them wrong if they hate being corrected.

[@godpop]

"doubled down" implies they had a conversation but the idiot still thought it was 1😂😂😂

[@PapaWoody440]

The math teacher didn't go to the principal to back up her math (unless the principal has a math degree), the math teacher went to the principal to exert her authority. It wasn't about being correct, it was about shutting the parent up.

[@Theslavedrivers]

And that.

[@SmallLab129]

A lot of things i don’t like about the Bay Area, but try that crap here and 3 parents with PHds in math will shut that principal and teacher down.

[@alexanderduvall2567]

The audacity to presume one has the “authority” to override reality itself. It’s stuff like that that leads to all sorts of awful things in our world. In this situation, it didn’t matter much as it will probably be corrected in middle or high school. But imagine if it was something of serious ethical importance, and they still refused correction? Attitudes like that which do not care about reality can destroy lives. Here it couldn’t, but the same absurd refusal to acknowledge reality could be a serious danger in another situation. Humanity and civics needs to be developed in education. Without civics and ethics being taught, formed, practiced, and required all sorts of issues are bound to happen which are 100% preventable.

[@scruffygaming627]

Wow you must be telepathic, to somehow know all that from the limited info in the video. Or are you personally involved deeply in the situation mentioned in the video? I'm willing to be you're straight up assuming many things and deciding a conclusion based on those unfounded assumptions. which makes you as bad as the teacher in the video. :) come down to earth, don't assume you know what's going on.

[@davesmith9325]

​@@scruffygaming627it's reality the teacher and principle are both wrong. The error was pointed out and yet they double down on asserting something wrong. Why do you excuse it and want to let it slide ? Tolerating nonsense is tearing society apart.

[@SpectroKnight]

Wait a minute. If 1 divided by infinity is essentially 0, would not 1 divided by 0 essentially be infinity? When you divide by zero you are saying the answer no fraction of the original number and it would contains all numbers. Follow this. 1/100=0.01, 1/10=0.1, 1/1=1, 1/0.1=10, 1/0.01=100, 1/0.0000001=10,000,000 the closer you get to zero the larger the number. So 1/0 is infinity.

[@mgaschenbeck]

Now do 1/(-1), 1/(-.01), 1/(-.00000001). Your logic says 1/0 is negative infinity too.

[@juliem6696]

I had the same thing happen to me. My son's teacher (5th grade I think) had an official chart on the wall saying 1/0=0, 2/0=0, 3/0=0, etc. I spent the entire 15 minutes of our parent teacher conference trying to explain to her why that was wrong. She couldn't get it. Very discouraging.

[@WitchidWitchid]

Its really a shame that a teacher, who's job it is to educate our children can get a basic math fact so wrong and teach children incorrect math. Even if the teacher doesn't understand the theory as to why dividing by zero is undefined the teacher should at least know it as a mathematical fact.

[@jimclayson]

I had to explain the "Monty Hall" problem to my Math 101 teacher during the half-semester I spent at the local community college before I dropped out thirty years ago. I hadn't heard of it (there was no "Google" back then), but he explained how it worked and said he'd observed the results, but didn't understand the math behind it. I spent about fifteen seconds thinking about it, and walked him, step by step, through the statistical analysis after class. I've met very few competent teachers in my life. I could do the same with "division by zero," but I've never had a teacher who didn't at least know it's "undefined," even if they didn't always understand WHY it was so.

[@Cacowninja]

Time to pick a different school.

[@Spero_Hawk]

Not related to any experience with a teacher but I wrote a whole computer program to demonstrate the Monty Hall problem to my old roommate. I made it so that it can iterate over a million times and display the results or you could manually pick each time, much quicker than pen and paper. He still didn't believe it, said I must have programmed it wrong.@@jimclayson

[@kaasmeester5903]

Simply tell the teacher to prove 1 / 0 = 0 to you, using a calculator.

[@wizrad2099]

I had an algebra teacher in 10th grade that I constantly had to correct his tests for him (they were multiple choice, but you had to show your work, and frequently the correct answers were not among the options or we would be grading them and the answer key would indicate the wrong answer to be true). Any time I challenged an answer, he'd make me come up to the board and we'd work the problem side by side, and when I proved I was right he'd turn around and announce the changes to the class, and that was that. It never turned into a problem, I think he honestly appreciated the help. It's cool having a teacher that respects their students enough to be corrected like that.

[@goe54]

How is it possible to have so incompetent teachers?

[@pharoah327]

This! As a professor and more importantly as a human being, we aren't always right. It's important to admit your mistake, announce the correction, and move on.

[@TheBaggyT]

I've taught for many years. Although I only rarely make students write their answers on the board, whenever a student challenges my answer, I either ask to see their working or I ask them to explain their method. I don't just say, "You're wrong," I explain that we can't both be right, and that I do make mistakes sometimes. This way, we not only find out who was wrong, but we find out why the mistake was made. And I always congratulate the student for speaking up, and especially if it turns out that I made the mistake!

[@sk2790]

Problem is.. most stupid ppl can't handle the small amount of authority given to them and become a tyrant when challenged.

[@ShuKatashSam]

"I do not know, let's figure out the problem together" - better form of teaching. Assume nothing.

[@JLarky]

I like how the guy is like "I wonder how can I explain this so that even a 3rd grade teacher can understand? - long division"

[@mf--]

Teach your kid long division before 4th grade please. It is not that hard.

[@amy4484]

Most schools don't teach traditional math like long division anymore. I used to be a "brick and mortar" school teacher. I teach online now, and most of the kids I teach math to have NEVER seen traditional long division.

[@jakemccoy]

@@amy4484 Then how the heck do they divide big numbers by hand without using long division?

[@OG_Agrivar]

@@jakemccoy one hand holds the calculator, and the other presses the buttons. ;-P

[@IceMaverick13]

@@jakemccoy Probably by using a similar thought process of finding max-multiples and subtracting them from the original value the same way we do for long division. The way we write long division is just an organizational pattern for recording the computation we're doing in our head, but it's equally effective to just jot down the numbers on a pad as we find them to reach the right answer, it's just not as pretty to read it back. How much you value readability of the process of solving VS the final answer being correct is what determines if learning long division as a tool is worthwhile.

[@ronwayne3865]

It's actually a calculus problem. As the denominator approaches zero, the fraction approaches infinity. Lim as X --> 0, 1/X = infinity

[@victorvirgili4447]

It also approaches negative infinity, and 0 is neither positive nor negative

[@terrybertrand7159]

Even my calculator knows this. If I input ONE divided by ZERO, my calculator responds with "Math Error" - but if I input ZERO divided by ONE, it correctly displays ZERO.

[@TheDrizzle404]

Windows calculator says "Cannot divide by zero."

[@jacobshelt01]

My phone calculator says error so it is 0?

[@ExelArts]

​@@TheDrizzle404android says the same thing

[@earth2k66]

If your calculator is smart enough it will give you the actual answer, undefined.

[@tarpanc34]

@@TheDrizzle404 my android phone does the same thing.. lol

[@CondemnTheMasses]

I worked in tile sales years ago and a lady needed some tile and after I did the math on the calculator for how much she would need she tried to correct me and got snobby saying she was a teacher. When she realized she was wrong she said she didn’t need help anymore. The second hand embarrassment was strong.

[@maxfish4770]

I had a similar experience, when proven correct I said I hope you're not a maths teacher with a chuckle, he was 😂

[@SemekiIzuio]

She could have easily apologized and own that mistake but ego us a sin at times

[@dickbandanaken]

because instead of paying teachers we lionize them which attracts the neediest and most fragile people

[@12345678bobster]

@@Azereiah He's not wrong though, his example fits perfectly. Teachers will say a bunch of stuff that is factually wrong, due to ideology/stubborness/or whatever other reason.

[@Mongo966]

@@12345678bobster His example fits perfectly? The discussion was about teachers getting math questions wrong and not wanting to admit it, and he brought up gender identity issues. How is that a perfect fit? Are you over there telling yourself you aren't pumped full of ideology, bud? What a laugh.

[@stevenmoomey2115]

I had a Physics Teacher, that stood up and chewed the entire class out for everyone failing a Physics test. It took a lot of convincing him, and bringing in a Students Engineer Father to show him he was wrong. The whole year ended up that way, he couldn’t do his own test problems. This was back in the early 70’s.

[@JohnIshikawa]

This was a good video-I liked it! I never thought of this way-using long division- to show, pretty close to quantitatively- why a number divided by zero is undefined.

[@davidduncan3439]

In first grade, I got a B on an assignment for how I spelled ketchup. My teacher said the proper spelling was catsup. As she went on teaching, I quietly consulted a dictionary, wanting to know if I was truly wrong. I found that both spellings were in the dictionary, and respectfully pointed it out to her. She was flabbergasted, and sent me to the principal’s office. My mom had to come in and talk to the principal, who told her I was correct and would not be punished. That was an early lesson in critical thinking for me.

[@sophiedowney1077]

Actually, catsup is still likely wrong depending on the context. Ketchup is a very legally specific term referring to a very specific foodstuff made with a specific proportion of ingredients. If a manufacturer deviates from the legally defined ingredients, they can no longer legally define their product as "ketchup." "Catsup" is to "ketchup" what "creme" is to "cream." "Catsup" is a ketchup-like tomato concoction (and in some cases abomination) that does not meet the strict legal requirements to be labeled as "ketchup." So, yes it is ketchup, and anyone who tries to tell you that their "catsup" is ketchup is at best misinformed, and at worst comitting food labeling law violations. Just to be safe your teacher should probably be investigated by the FDA, the FTC, the CFPB, and the USDA. It's the only way to be sure ;)

[@AnotherExtraFist]

Yes, "correctness" in spelling was the first to go! Then there are the "englishes".

[@ReverZe83]

​@sophiedowney1077 Yes coz that's the detail 6-7 years olds would be worried about 😂 Good lord!

[@richardwilliams3080]

@@sophiedowney1077I feel like you made up some of those letter names. I freely admit I could be, and most likely am, wrong about that, but it just feels made up.

[@jaelwyn]

​@richardwilliams3080 Food And Drug administration, Federal Trade Commission, Consumer Finance Protection Board, and United States Department of Agriculture, respectively.

[@InTeCredo]

When my family and I emigrated to the United States from Germany in the 1970s, my American teachers didn't believe that a 7-year-old German kid could do the additions, subtractions, multiplications, and divisions in the head without writing out the exercise and the process. That was how I was taught in Germany prior to our emigration. Same with the cursive handwriting (I was only kid in the entire elementary school who could write in cursive handwriting with fountain pen as it was norm in Germany). Gradually, i started to hate doing math exercise and developed the aversion toward the math classes. That is very tragic and unjust how the teacher's attitude can cause the lifelong damage to the students.

[@Cutiejuliya]

Same here

[@steventaylor4740]

Ditto.... I hate math because I always had to prove it to the teacher in writing. I just stopped....

[@yes12337]

This is probably the standard throughout all European countries that kids are taught to do basic calculations in their head during their first years of a primary school.

[@Shreyanshz]

​@@yes12337 Europe as well as asia

[@wendytipon6020]

My daughter went to a private school for kindergarden and half of 1st grade, we had to move so she had to go to public school.. she could read and write in cursive and do math in her head the class she was in was learning CAT SAT. I guess that was a sentance for the class to learn that week. The teacher told my daughter she had to learn like the rest of the class and couldnt read books from the 3and 4th grade section of the library only the 1st grade section same with doing smaller math and she wasnt allowed to write in cursive. After a few meetings with the teacher that didnt go so well.. that is what led us to homeschooling!

[@Bushidounohana]

The marker switching skills on display here are second to NONE … The seamless, seemingly effortless handling AND switching in mid-long division is almost as spell binding as the clear, comprehensive explanation. Brilliant! Thank you for this excellent explanation!

[@rocketman374]

Yeah I came here to say the same thing about the markers! It took me until halfway through the video to realize he had two markers in his hand, I thought I'd just missed the transfer the first couple of times. 😂

[@egomaniac247]

Y’all easily impressed…

[@Bushidounohana]

@@egomaniac247 says the ego maniac … how true to form!

[@MsLt1982]

I’m glad I’m not the only one who noticed and appreciated this! 😁

[@bprpmathbasics]

Thanks! I appreciate that!

[@wisdomSP]

My friends high-school student came home one day and said their science teacher told them that there is a helium shortage because there are not enough airplanes equiped to harvest helium from the atmosphere. Step one, master your craft! Home school it is...

[@fvb7]

Worst was when I was in college with a chemical engineer professor. She accused me of cheating stoichiometry because I sometimes flipped the ratios but would still get the right answer. I had to explain simple ratios to a PhD holder in front of a lecture hall of students and then defend myself when she brought it up to a dean of engineering. And then needed to involve the math department at the university to observe my lecture on basic math to multiple PhD holders....

[@kpika911]

💀 dude that's the funniest shit I've heard,what did the math department say?

[@HydeMyJekyll]

@@kpika911 they said "lol fuckin' chemists"

[@thexalon]

This seems like a chemistry incident that would have to be viewed as ... explosive.

[@fvb7]

@@kpika911 I actually don't know what finally convinced them because my math professors just said yes I am correct and I left. To my knowledge that was not the end of the discussion just my participation. I wasn't expelled though so it's a win don't care lol.

[@wholeNwon]

At a real university?

[@sonnyeclipse2227]

This video reminds me that in second grade, my teacher was asking the class to share the name of any amphibian they knew of during a lesson. Having owned a book with many examples amphibians in it, I answered 'newt' with confidence. Instead of admitting she didn't know what a newt even was, she told me very flatly and with a frown on her face: 'No.' Thing is, newts very much exist and they ARE classed as amphibians. I knew something a teacher didn't when I was eight years old and she couldn't handle it.

[@jengoodwyn2715]

That's all I was taught in school: anything divided by 0 was 0.

[@WalintHUN]

At the beginning, individuals go to school, but by the time they finish, they become a flock of sheep (except a few strong minds). States and countries prefer not to have thinking people, but rather mindless yes-men who are merely taxing, robots. (sorry for my English, I try to learn this language)

[@hunszaszist]

A similar thing happened with me and my chem teacher. We started learning organic chemistry, and I was so bored by it that I didn't pay attention. I instead learned it from the internet at home. Thing is, the teacher was simplifying the chemical notations, so the "zig-zag" notation that's been used in chemistry for ages wasn't what she taught us. We had a chem exam, and me, being a dumb smartass, thought nothing of it and used the "correct" notation instead of her simplified one. I got an F. She told me "my" notation doesn't make any sense. I then, in front of the class, told her she doesn't know basic chemistry. I was sent to the principal's office for it. Long story short, I had to write a 2 page defense for "my" method with citations to have my grade corrected to a B (I hated chemistry, as you can imagine, no way I was getting an A) and still had to apologize to the teacher for undermining her authority in front of the whole class. This was like 15 years ago and I'm still a little salty about it - at least I got the chance to redeem myself.

[@LosPeregrinos51]

Teachers are NEVER wrong 🙄 When my daughter was 7 she wrote a story about pirates in which she used the word "pistoles" several times (a pistole was a gold coin used in Europe in the 1700s) in each case the teacher had crossed through the word in red ink and wrote, in block letters, PISTOLS!! My daughter was obviously upset by this and together we questioned the teacher. She said "Well I've never come across that word before!" to which my response was "I'm sure that there are many words you have never come across before such as 'sorry' and 'apologise' but there are such things as dictionaries!" My daughter was changing schools at the end of that session so we had nothing to lose!

[@zwicker5585]

⁠​⁠@@WalintHUNthis is some wild statements to make. If you wanted mindless sheep and yes men you wouldnt teach them at all. The education system is flawed but to pretend its created by the state to keep us from thinking is ludicrous fear mongering that only the feeble minded would participate in

[@04stiger]

I remember arguing with a teacher in grade 5 over days in the year, she was convinced it was 364 days. I would forward the emails to your local education department so they can see what idiots they hired to teach your child.

[@ffggddss]

That would be great if it were true, because then we'd never have to change calendars. At exactly 52 weeks, each year would have the same calendar! So what if, after several dozen years, Christmas would arrive in the summer? And in Australia, it would be in winter for a change. Fred

[@Willrocs]

Leap year 😂😂😂😂

[@Dennys854]

I just saw a video that explains Sidereal Years vs Terrestrial Years.... try and explain that one,,,,

[@solarsynapse]

It is actually 365.25 days in a year. That is why there is leap year every 4 years to make up for the 4 quarter days.

[@theriskid]

@@solarsynapse Wrong.

[@echoecho3155]

My high school science teacher once asserted that there was only one Moon landing. I got in trouble for trying to correct him, and he tried to humiliate me in front of the entire class. I remember this every time someone tells me to trust someone based on their credentials or position.

[@jeffsimard8846]

What's one moon landing divided by 0 moon landings

[@zachariousmccool5768]

This reminds me of my friends story in school and why I hate school, I love learning but I hate school. He said they were learning addition and subtraction. He got the gist pretty easy but then he raised his hand and asked "Well what happens when you subtracts 1 from 0? is it -1?" Teacher straight up said there were no such thing as negative numbers. Then literally a month later they started the lesson on negative numbers and he said "But you said there werent negative numbers" to which they said "you just werent ready yet" Always angered me because he was genuinly wanting to learn more and they just said no because thats not we are doing now. I have had similar experiences also and its why I hate school. The repetition, the snails pace, the mindless homework that doesnt help, the fact you can ace every test and still get a C or a D. ugh still irks me to this day. I really like your teaching method. Its concise, easy to understand and is respectful. Very enlightening.

[@RottenRoseMotifs]

Yeah, or it moves too fast for us (me….) to absorb. I think education should be far more catered to the individual than it is, and it’s sad it isn’t.

[@zachariousmccool5768]

@@RottenRoseMotifs True I agree and I understand everyone learns differently and some people need more time than others.....but there should be a limit.....like here is an example. Not math but in my english class we had to read and basically analyze a short story. It was only 14 pages.......it took 3 days to read and then we spent another 2 weeks on this assignment when it should of been 1 day. Its infuriating how much time is wasted in school.

[@b3ntastic]

I was once doing some extra work for a math homework and found about about Pi, and included it in my answer (correctly). At the next class I presented my homework and got laughed at because I said Pi :) and after that I didn't care about math anymore and my math grades started to crumble.

[@henrycavanagh1259]

You are immatute painting all schools and teachers with one brush. Grow up.

[@iHateHandlesGetRidOfThis]

i had this exact experience early on in schooling, and i remember it very vividly. I got a basic math homework of subtraction to take home, i did a few questions before coming across one that resulted in a negative number, and i wrote the answer down as a negative number. next day i handed it in to learn i got a failing grade on it. why? At the top of the page was small text reading "cross out any impossible questions" ._.

[@animezinglife]

The fact the teacher felt the need to CC the principal on something pertaining to a third grader's homework says a lot about the teacher...

[@TimothyHolt-vh2hd]

Might have been some sort of protocol for the school district to involve a principal at a certain point?

[@LibeliumDragonfly]

And the fact the principle came up with the same answer says a lot about the school as well. If anything I'd suggest this person bail from that school.

[@iinRez]

Yes. There is no doubt a BLM flag and a Trans flag in that Classroom. @@LibeliumDragonfly

[@shadowkirby3763]

​@@iinRezalright grandpa let's get you back to bed.

[@Luckingsworth]

Its a reddit post, its fake.

[@peachmail]

This reminds me of the time I was in middle school and got marked down on a worksheet because I said a simile uses ‘like’ or ‘as’, whereas a metaphor makes a direct comparison. My teacher insisted I was wrong but could not/refused to explain how I was wrong to my mother (a professor of English literature). My mom made a fuss about it until I was given the correct grade, but sometimes I think miserable teachers just do this to exert power over kids.

[@angelachouinard4581]

@peachmail My mom worked in for an assistant principle when I was in high school but earlier before she had kids she worked in major law firms. She used to say a lot of teachers became teachers so they wouldn't have to deal with adults on equal footing.

[@ageyoung24]

@@angelachouinard4581 I refuse to agree that "a lot" do so, but I will agree that some definitely do. Every profession has people that are bad at their jobs, you just remember them in education because you spent 8 hours every day for 13 years of your childhood dealing with that profession.

[@philkarn1761]

I think it'd be more accurate to say that bad teachers know they're bad, they're insecure about it, and they're trying to hide their incompetence from the kids. This never works; it just alienates the kids. Smart people say "I don't know" all the time, and they take each one as a challenge. This is how they got smart in the first place. Chris Kraft, the guy who started NASA Mission Control in the early 60s, interviewed prospective controllers by asking technical questions. He expected one of two answers: the correct answer, or "I don't know, but I'll find out". If you tried to bullshit him, you were out of there.

[@sblijheid]

I'm glad I did not attend school in the US. I actually learned stuff. It baffles me when Americans don't know the most basic things, but especially their lack of understanding of how the American society works. I have to Google everything. I can't just turn around and ask a question. No one seems to know zip.

[@SpaceCadet4Jesus]

@peachmail Was that middle school story a simile or a metaphor? 😉

[@jasonspencer5267]

Why wasn’t this guy my high school math teacher? I STRUGGLED with this shit as a teenager. Watching one single video made me understand completely how to do it.

[@yakovdavidovich7943]

It should be pretty easy to ask the teacher, "If 8/2=4 implies that 4*2=8, then 1/0=0 implies 0*0=1."

[@Guhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

True

[@cryora]

But that would be wrong because disagreeing with the teacher is insubordination. Even if the teacher is objectively wrong, it is morally wrong to embarrass the teacher and put their job in jeopardy. In the real world it works the same way. Especially if you have an advanced degree and you work for someone who doesn't. Helps saves you from getting fired, plus arguing about what diving by 0 gets you doesn't get you to the bottom line, namely making money, any faster - rather it delays it.

[@Dojan5]

@@cryora Where do you live where being wrong as a teacher can put their job in jeopardy? I frequently disagreed and argued with teachers. I was often wrong, but sometimes teachers were too. No one ever got hurt, punished, or lost a job over it.

[@toddwatkins5011]

​@@cryorainsubordination? Wow that is a whack take. The teacher is the one who brought her boss into the conversation so, if they get embarrassed or fired it is their own fault.

[@Humanity101-zp4sq]

Different world. That's why all the decent teachers have quit.@@Dojan5

[@retirednavychief6983]

Nicely done! I just left a position teaching at-risk teens mathematics, and most had never dealt with this. Your methodology is the same way I would present this information. I'm glad that I was teaching them correctly!! You professional mathmeticians rock!!

[@desktopkitty823]

When I was 10 years old, I got into an argument with my 5th grade teacher that rainbows are not just random colors in random order. I kept trying to explain the speed of light and the order of the colors are always the same in rainbows. But she doubled down and told everyone in the class that I was wrong and every rainbow is like a snowflake and the colors are always different in different order. Has she never watched an episode of Barney?

[@captaintoyota3171]

Dude ive had nurses tell me certain drugs are not used for their SCIENTIFICALLY proven purpose but " just get you high so you forget about ______". No understanding of receptor activity or how this substance blocks signals in parts of the brain. Nope it just gets you high. I was stunned a RN a TRAINED nurse knows less about stuff she is perscribing than i do. And we wonder why opioids where an issue? Maybe its cause Humans REFUSE to educate themselves fully before thinking they know something

[@guysmiley4830]

Some of the dumbest people i've met were teachers

[@farelimm]

Someone needed to bring that poor lady a prism

[@goose_clues]

Maybe she was talking about the people who use it as the flag.

[@knutritter461]

Generally you are right about the orders of colors in a first-order rainbow. Please take the second order of refraction into consideration where the order of colors is inverted and the intensity is greatly reduced.

[@Duhiclim8TreEz]

I never picked up math after 4th grade, your explanations were very helpful. I’m 40 now thank you

[@nickwannn]

honestly this is a valuable lesson for that child positions of authority can not only be wrong, but will double down on being wrong to avoid admitting fault way more useful than anything in a math class

[@abrakkehakka1357]

True. But the problem with authorities doubling down on what is false in the first place is quite dangerous. It makes people loose the respect for all kind of scientific authorities when we discover that some are wrong and misleads us. That they don’t question their own conclusions. While self criticism being the essence of modern falsificationist science really. And many then starts to react with “why believe teachers, scientists, courts, any authority”. That 1/0 isn’t 0 really ought to be known by all teachers that teach math or science at any level. And really by all principals. Although, it is better to say “oops I was wrong there… well I’m not a high school math teacher, so I don’t always know the advanced stuff”. Because we all have our limits to what we know. And need to be open about it. Really, it should at least have been easy for them to enter 1/0 on a calculator and see that the outcome will be “error”.

[@57thorns]

This is a very unfortunate lesson, and a dangerous one. It paves the way for all kinds of conspiracy theories. And perhaps that is the reason conspiracy theories so easily spread.

[@stanleyrobinson9208]

Absolutely the worst lesson to teach a dragon or unicorn - they conspire with each other 🧐

[@dradeel]

Paves the way for conspiracy theories? Absolutely not! What an absolutely illogical and dangerous notion that is. It only paves the way for not blindly and irrationally trusting authorities and instead demanding proper and logical arguments to be made! This is an extremely valuable and good lessons about the nature of people and the destructive force of authoritarianism, both in science and society. The very act of ignoring the dominant position of the person and instead letting logic and truth dictate the answer, no matter how unpopular or inconvenient it may be, means you avoid succumbing to the irrationalities of people of authority or with a wishy washy relationship with reality. It's the biggest cure against irrationality everywhere.

[@BMoser-bv6kn]

@@57thorns The sad thing is you don't need a conspiracy to work out why the interests of our ruling class differs from ours. A politician is employed by its donors. They work for them, while in office and after they leave. Their entire family works for them through various "jobs". Bribery is done right in the open and is perfectly legal. It's a grimdark world, but acknowledging is better than wearing a potato sack over your head and pretending everything is perfectly fine and normal.

[@joshuaestrada3166]

His marker skills are on point. Seamlessly swaps between colors without anyone noticing.

[@koredeogundele3965]

I noticed that too! Seamless switching

[@craniumrex4614]

I know, right? I thought he had a real “magic marker” until I actually noticed he was holding both colours! 😅

[@TheSEWEGI]

Well... He is Asian after all

[@holger_p]

But we don't know, if it's by intention or just randomly.

[@craniumrex4614]

Sure you do. Questions in blue, answers in red. Seemed pretty orderly, consistent, and deliberate to me.

[@Dunce155]

In high school one of our teachers that had a major in Geography tried to tell my Indian friend that he was European. She absolutely would not concede that India was actually in Asia. We still laugh at her

[@Uruz2012]

She was trying to say that they're "caucasian" rather than "asian." This is based on the old idea tthat there are basically 4 categories of people. White, black, asian and other.😮‍💨

[@TheToxicP]

He's euroasian. Europe & Asia are just both to immature & lazy to recognize they're part of the same continent.

[@Kjhgfd123]

@@TheToxicP I mean, Africa Europe and Asia are all on big land mass. Afrosia

[@StefTedder]

I mean, Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Americas are all on the same earth so, technically, it’s Afromersia.

[@Stephanie-xz7qd]

She wasn't really wrong though?

[@ALaModePi]

A little bit late on the conversation but I would do two things: 1) Contact a professor in Mathematics at a nearby University and ask them to write a brief explanation of why anything divided by 0 is indeterminable. (Reversing the equation, anything times 0 is 0, not anything else.) 2) See who the author of the textbook being used is and write them with the same question. Either of these should constitute proof that the teacher and principle are wrong.

[@johnstarkie9948]

Principal.

[@stevengull6703]

I just want you to know as a grown man who already knows how to divide and why you can't divide by 0 I was still thoroughly entertained with your breakdown on how to explain it and will actually use this method when I explain it my kids when they get to that point. Thanks have a good one.

[@dheckman1]

I raised two kids through public school. My finding was that there are only maybe two teachers in any school that can do math and few want to teach it. In my kid's school they offered extra money to those who volunteered to teach math. I had to put together a spread sheet for one of my daughter's teachers who continually graded her students (including my daughter) incorrectly because she wasn't able to properly apply the school policy on weighting for exams, tests, quizes, and homework. Then the school tried to teach my kids the "new math." New math? Didn't Archimedes come up with that?? They were so confused I had to sit them down, work through some problems and basically tell them to ignor their teachers if they wanted to get the correct answers.

[@dshepherd107]

I agree with you. I think it’s been this way a very long time.

[@TwilightRogue15]

It has. In the 70's, they called it 'Modern Math'. 'New Math' is the exact same thing, and yes, Archimedes did come up with it and later saw his own flaws with it, but they intentionally leave that part out, as well. They also teach that Euclid, the creator of what we know as the Mathematical Plane and Geometry as we define it, was a hack because he called his method Numerology, going under the idea that all of God's creations can be explained mathematically. The term 'Numerology' was coopted by a different belief much later on, but Euclid is still unfairly discredited to this day!

[@pollyeyes8318]

Math hasn’t changed, just the strategies for teaching it. It focuses on conceptualizing numbers and problems in different ways to gain a better foundation and problem solving skills rather than teaching rote procedures. Personally the “new math” as it’s put is exactly how I’ve always worked through problems so I’ve never seen an issue with it. Mathematical concepts came very easy to me so anyone saying it won’t work or work as well is wrong. Some kids find math hard and likely would regardless. That being said I believe that some of the mental flexibility that is used in this method ends up leading to a higher likelihood for small errors. I’m also curious if some children may never grasp certain concepts fully and so this method just might not be the best for them. Logical reasoning skills don’t develop to the same extent in everyone and that’s very well documented and understood. Many people who may not have the same natural aptitude rely on procedures, memorization and hard work to ingrain what’s expected of them. I knew a math professor that worked this way. He lived and breathed math but acknowledged that he didn’t have the natural insights that someone with far lesser knowledge than he, had. He was systematic and extremely knowledgeable but couldn’t make the same leaps in insights as some others. But he was a professor of mathematics… I wonder if he’d have done as well in today’s world.

[@Marinealver]

New Math 2 + 2 = 5 Teach your kids the truth at home, Then teach your kids to tell the lies they want to hear back at them.

[@DirtBikes_MathGarden]

@@Marinealverno one is claiming that 2+2=5 in public school. However, there are mathematical environments in which 2+2=5 could be true in the field of number theory, such as integers modulo n or different definition of “addition”. These are advanced topics though, only to be discussed at the university level.

[@alanhaynes9672]

When my eldest daughter was 8, a supply teacher asked the children what the sun was? She put her hand up and said “it’s a star miss” the teacher not only told her she was wrong, but had the whole class laughing at her for getting it wrong. It took me ages that evening to convince her that she was correct all along. This is where education can be dangerous.

[@chapagawa]

What did the teacher say the Sun was? A big flashlight?

[@alanhaynes9672]

@@chapagawa I can’t remember exactly. I think she said it was simply ‘the sun’ and the only one

[@Narsuitus]

What is a "supply teacher?"

[@alanhaynes9672]

@@Narsuitus it’s usually a semi qualified/trainee teacher who works part time helping the regular teacher

[@chapagawa]

@@alanhaynes9672 Well, I guess if you limit the scope of the investigation to our solar system, she could be right…. Sorry for your child’s embarrassment for being right, but a good lesson from Twain “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”

[@anonymous99985]

I could watch you all day. I wish my love of learning was brought out in my school years. That's one of the things teachers should be doing..

[@skyloh258]

I really have to give kudos to my mom for teaching me to always question things that don’t make sense, especially your teachers.

[@erikthomsen4007]

However, the scepticism can also go _too_ far. One of my aquaintances had an extremely religious classmate in an engineering school. Whenever the teacher introduced something new, the religious student yelled "I don't believe that!". Example: The torsion bar. _"I don't believe that, because you can't twist a bar!"_ Well, actually you can. It seemed like anything that wasn't described in the Bible, wasn't believable. I wonder if he ever became an engineer...

[@TurdBoi666]

Atla is unfathomably mid

[@TurdBoi666]

​@@erikthomsen4007but believing in stories from Bible is already the opposite of being a skeptic

[@erikthomsen4007]

@@TurdBoi666 This guy was apparently sceptic to any knowledge _not_ coming from the Bible. To me, this is a strange and highly restraining form of scepticism.

[@skyloh258]

@@TurdBoi666 opinion rejected

[@horustwohawks]

I'm running into this sort of thing more and more. Someone challenges and corrects me for a statement, but then when I come back with factual evidence, they ignore me. So it was important enough to engage me for "telling me", but not important enough to have a mature conversation toward the truth. And that's life.

[@Tovek]

Stupid people feel empowered for some reason these days. The dumber they are, the more certain of everything they are. It's actually kind of comical.

[@aff77141]

Yep. I don't bother arguing with people because of this. If I'm not confident, I say "I'm not sure about that but I'd have to check", or if I KNOW, I just tell them "If that's what you wanna think". No satisfaction, I will never reward rudeness by wasting MY time, the burden of proof is on the person who brings it up

[@RusticRonnie]

I had a dude fight me that a Chicago typewriter a Thompson and a Tommy gun weren’t all the same gun. Obviously it had other nicknames like trench sweeper and such. I literally had to show him old footage, then he was like “why do you care” … WE WORK AT AN ARMORY MUSEUM ITS OUR JOB.

[@annellle]

i just love it when chronically online individuals challenge me or someone else with “source?” when they get called out for spitting nonsense and calling it a fact, and I get to send them a barrage of citations and/or references (depends on the platform) as my “source”, and all in APA7 style too which they probably aren’t educated at high enough of a level to know about and use for academic works. Suddenly they go radio silent on me, and target some other person with the same steaming pile of bullshit disguised as a “fact” yet again.

[@lastofthe4horsemen279]

Thats life in the internet age .Since answers are easy to look up now their value and retention has gone way down.

[@todd7660]

I'm infuriated with how clearly you explained long divison, why couldn't I have gotten that in school??? Thanks for clearing it up man

[@smashedphone4200]

They don't teach long division in school anymore?

[@todd7660]

@smashedphone4200 They do, it was just explained so badly that I never completely understood what was happening and dreaded ever looking it up due to how confusing I thought it would be. And it was one of the smallest sections in class that only happened once, so it was never gone over again. I don't even remember testing on it, just work sheets.

[@user-pe9gz8si8k]

Because you weren’t being taught, you were being groomed.

[@donut3946]

You are why

[@donut3946]

@@smashedphone4200maybe not at your school, lol

[@wolfmoon256]

Wow I’ve never seen anybody actually EXPLAIN why you can’t divide by zero, I was always just told you can’t with no explanation. Great video!