I wrote a (very long) blog post about those viral math problems and am looking for feedback, especially from people who are not convinced that the problem is ambiguous.
It’s about a 30min read so thank you in advance if you really take the time to read it, but I think it’s worth it if you joined such discussions in the past, but I’m probably biased because I wrote it :)
I think this speaks to why I have a total of 5 years of college and no degree.
Starting at about 7th grade, math class is taught to every single American school child as if they’re going to grow up to become mathematicians. Formal definitions, proofs, long sets of rules for how you manipulate squiggles to become other squiggles that you’re supposed to obey because that’s what the book says.
Early my 7th grade year, my teacher wrote a long string of numbers and operators on the board, something like 6 + 4 - 7 * 8 + 3 / 9. Then told us to work this problem and then say what we came up with. This divided us into two groups: Those who hadn’t learned Order of Operations on our own time who did (six plus four is ten, minus seven is three, times eight is 24, plus three is 27, divided by nine is three) Three, and who were then told we were wrong and stupid, and those who somehow had, who did (seven times eight is 56, three divided by nine is some tiny fraction…) got a very different number, and were told they were right. Terrible method of teaching, because it alienates the students who need to do the learning right off the bat. And this basically set the tone until I dropped out of college for the second time.
Yes, unfortunately there are some bad teachers around. I vividly remember the one I had in Year 10, who literally didn’t care if we did well or not. I got sick for an extended period that year, and got a tutor - my Maths improved when I had the tutor (someone who actually helped me to learn the material)!