New Yorker writer Helen Rosner recentlyshared an image from a math workbook that herfriend was working on with their child.The friend, an MIT grad, was stumped.“Neither he nor I have even the tiniestclue what the kid is supposed to do here,”Rosner wrote in her Tweet caption.The image in question showed twobaskets.
One basket contained twobananas and three oranges and thesecond basket contained nothing.The math problem asked for “math drawings”to be used to “make the picture equal”.The first confusing thing of note right offthe bat is the phrase “math drawings.” Many peopleseemed to not understand what that meant.Thankfully one woman shared a completedhomework sheet that made a little more sense.Basically, the point of the lesson is teachingkids that the equal sign in an equation doesn’tnecessarily mean “this is the one and only answer”.So for Rosner’s friend, the student could fill theempty basket with four bananas and one orange.They could also fill it with threebananas and two oranges.
Either way,both baskets would equal five fruits