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From: bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante)
Newsgroups: comp.edu,sci.math,sci.physics
Subject: Re: Student preparedness
Message-ID: <16504@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>
Date: 16 Jan 89 17:12:08 GMT
Reply-To: bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante)
Organization: malkaryotic
Lines: 10

("Oh wow"?  Ah, nostalgia.)  It's pretty disturbing as well, that a
teacher should think of counting on fingers as a proof of anything.  I
use it as an example of minimal arithmetic skills...

I thought of a safe way to convince brain-dead people that negative
numbers exist.  Simply ask them how much money they have, after writing
a $250 rent check on a bank account with $197 in it.  (Of course, most
grade schoolers aren't thinking along these lines, and the example will
seem unrealistic in the apartment markets of most big cities, but it
puts it in a realm that grade school TEACHERS should relate to.)