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From: piner@pur-phy (Richard Piner)
Newsgroups: comp.edu,sci.math,sci.physics
Subject: Re: Student preparedness
Message-ID: <1791@pur-phy>
Date: 16 Jan 89 08:12:55 GMT
References: <605@ucrmath.EDU> <6578@killer.DALLAS.TX.US> <19252@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> <85191@sun.uucp> <331@sunset.MATH.UCLA.EDU>
Reply-To: piner@newton.physics.purdue.edu.UUCP (Richard Piner)
Organization: Purdue Univ. Physics Dept., W. Lafayette, IN
Lines: 26

In article <331@sunset.MATH.UCLA.EDU> troly@math.ucla.edu (Bret Jolly) writes:
->In article <85191@sun.uucp> landman@sun.UUCP (Howard A. Landman) writes:
->>My first grade teacher taught that there was no such thing as a negative
->>number.  It took me three years to figure out she was wrong, but when I
->>did, I was furious for a month.
->
->  My 3rd grade teacher said the same thing, but I didn't believe her.
->I tried to explain them, but that only served to enrage her. She
->pulled me up in front of the class and said, "All right smarty, show
->the class numbers less than zero on your fingers. See, you can't, so
->there aren't any! Nyaah!" I had just come to this country and the
->encounter left me wondering if Americans were just intellectually
->inferior.
->
->-Bret

Oh wow, did you ever miss a chance to get tossed out of school.
Here's how you could have answered your teacher. "Let these fingers
represent positive numbers.", holding up three fingers. "Now, let these
fingers represent negative numbers.", holding two fingers pointed
down. (A side note, only a physicist would think of this, plus and
minus spin and all of that. Don't you know?) "Now, if I ADD these
two numbers, I get.....", holding up just one middle finger.
Can you say expelled, I knew you could. Oh well, life is full of
missed chances.
					R. Piner