A dad in Virginia ended up turning to social media for help after becoming confused by a first-grade math problem.
Math seems to be a problem for many young Americans.
In 2022, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), an initiative for measuring the levels of reading, math and science knowledge among 15-year-olds from member countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), revealed the U.S. to be below average in math.
Understanding the basic principles of math is crucial from an early age, with any confusion likely to lead to a failure to understand crucial concepts and a lack of enthusiasm for learning.
Maybe that’s why the homework question one concerned dad posted to Reddit under the handle u/beachITguy, has been causing so much debate.
At the time of writing, the post has received 11,000 upvotes. It has also been deleted from Reddit by moderators but has shared with Newsweek by the dad who first uploaded it.
Reddit/u/beachITguy
It reads: “Higher Order Thinking. Can you prove that 4 + 2 = 5 + 1 is true without solving both sides of the equation? Explain.”
The dad, who chose not to be named for this story, told Newsweek: “I was having a hard time getting my brain to think like a child just learning addition and subtraction, how would they describe a problem without solving it.”
Eager to get help, he decided to post the problem to Reddit. Many of those commenting on the post seemed equally confused.
“What the actual…” one wrote. “This is phrased like a university math question.” Another commented: “That’s nutty lol. You’re asking for a higher level math or cognitive thought than a first grader should be expected of. At that level understanding how and why they’re the same is solid.” A third added: “I’m honestly shocked that this is first grade…”
There were, however, some helpful responses for the struggling dad to consider.
One of the most thorough came from a user claiming to be a “first grade teacher of this exact curriculum who also happens to have a bachelors in math.”
“This is a Higher Order Thinking problem meaning it is trying to get the kids to think beyond the simple memorization or even algorithm,” they wrote. “This is breaking knowledge into true number theory which is ABSOLUTELY appropriate for first grade and SHOULD be the focus of math at that age.”
They continued: “In fact should be taught on a tactile (manipulative) level before. We got into such a rut of starting teaching the algorithm and even worse simple memorization above the algorithm that we pushed truly mathematical thinkers who were not good at rote memory away from math. This is correcting it and making mathematical THINKING the priority which expands the mind even outside of mathematics.”
They offered up the following as the correct answer:
4+2=5+1
4+1+1=5+1
(4+1)+1=5+1
5+1=5+1
Another user, claiming they were “studying to be an elementary school teacher” agreed with this breakdown based on their own understanding of how to teach math at this age level.
“I’m studying to be an elementary school teacher right now and I’ve had to take two full semesters of how to explain basic arithmetic to little kids and why the standard algorithms work,” they said. “It caught me off guard because when I was that age I was like ‘oh cool so this easy to memorize algorithm will work every time and I don’t need to know why? Sounds great!'”
Others, felt this answer was overly complex for a first-grade math question. One wrote: “Everyone is overthinking it for some reason. They just want something along the lines of “5 is one more than 4, 1 is one less than 2.”
The dad who originally posted the math problem believes he now has a handle on what made it so tricky to start with.
“Honestly, I think the wording of the question and so many older grown-ups having trouble describing how to describe something so easy that we do in our heads every day, then trying to relay that info to a 5-7-year-old kid is what was troubling,” he said.
He also confirmed that, since posting, he has obtained what he believes to be the correct answer.
“We did reach out to the teacher and they told us to ignore the wording of the question and just solve the two sides to prove that it is a TRUE statement,” he said.