Monday, March 12, 2007

Am I Smarter than a Fifth Grader . . .

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I have fifth grade twins so I'm doubly qualified to answer this question.

I was trying to help my daughter with her math the other night. It was something about probability. Like, if you have a coin and you flip it three times, what are the chances of it landing heads, tails, heads.

My first response, of course, was wondering why the teacher needed to know this information. Is there a job out there somewhere that requires people to flip coins in a certain order?

I told her that you have a fifty-fifty chance each time you flip a coin of getting it to be what you want it to be, unless you happen to have telekinetic powers. I'm still working on that skill, by the way. Sometimes I stare at the clutter in my house and chant, "Be gone!"

Apparently that was the wrong answer so I have to report that no, I'm not smarter than a fifth grader.

But in my defense I have never needed to know anything about the probability of coin tosses so I'm still okay.

1 comment:

Little Willow said...

I love math. I see numbers and patterns everywhere. I'm aware that my brain is wired uniquely. ;-)