Word Up

What is the point of word problems? I sucked at them when I was in school, and I still suck at them now while I try to help my children, who also suck at them. My husband is no help either, because he too sucks at word problems. The teachers must also suck at them or else they would do a better job of explaining them to my daughters. Maybe the problems are designed to make both the kids who are good at reading and the kids who are good at math suck at the same time? You know, to bring them down to the level of the kids who can’t read or add?

My older daughter E is in fifth grade at public school, and my younger daughter S is in third grade at private school, so they are pretty much on the same level of math, and consequently, word problems. They both come home with worksheets that should have a little travel pack of Kleenex attached, since all word problems are accompanied by crying. But beyond that, how these problems are written is very different.

S’s word problems tend to revolve around money. She brings home these sheets of problems about ordering off some restaurant menu. If Luka orders a Hawaiian hot dog and a tropical shake, but Mia wants some hurricane nachos, how much will it cost them to get the family meal if their mother gave them $30 to get lost for an hour or two while she talks to the cabana boy. Whenever I help her, I imagine we are at the Sawgrass beach club in Florida, ordering a little nosh while we wait for adult swim to end. To me, the answer to every one of these problems should be “just put it on my account.” Daddy can pay the bill when it comes, and we don’t really need to worry about how much all that food cost, because Mommy found lipstick on his boxers. Instead of figuring out if we have enough money, maybe we should be more concerned with whether Mia and Luka should be eating that junk. Perhaps Mia should lay off the nachos and get an organic fruit smoothie before she can’t fit in her bikini.

S’s problems seem trivial compared to E’s, which sound a bit more like government census work. If 8 boys are Hispanic and 2 girls are Native Americans, how many federal dollars can be awarded to the school when they excel at their standardized tests? Mario has five blue pencils. If he stabs Thad in the neck with one of them for calling him a bean eater, how many years will he get in juvie? If Tammy sleeps with 15 boys from her high school and 10 boys from another high school, what are the chances that her uncle is the father of her baby?

I don’t remember word problems being quite like that when I was in elementary school. We did get those lovely mimeograph copies, which smeared purple ink on your hand and were most excellent for sniffing. The problems all had to do with transportation, if I could remember anything past huffing my copy. Trains. Ah, yes, trains leaving from one town to another, at varying rates of speed, and something about the estimated time of arrival. No wonder they had to change the problems. Who rides a train anymore? The only time we hear about trains these days is if they derail or if one hits a pick-up truck that stalled on the tracks. But passenger trains? They went the way of 8 track players, leaded gas, and key parties. Plus, when I was in school, they tried to pull that new math crap on us, getting us all confused with the “metric” system, and we all know how good that turned out. Sure, they can skimp on the 2-liter of soda, but real Americans want their gallons of milk and gasoline.

The thing that really sucks about word problems is that since they are so complicated and time consuming, teachers will only put about five or six of them on a quiz. Inevitably, all the kids except the Asian one will miss at least one of the questions, leaving little Tomiko or Sanjay with the only passing grade in the class. And the rest of the kids? Well, the cash register at McDonald’s does the math for you, as long as you press the buttons that match what the food looks like.

On second thought, we better take another crack at that page of homework. McDonald’s sucks even worse than word problems.