My daughter is in 4th grade and is learning her division math facts. This is the very simple division that you first learn like 8 divided by 2 is 4, etc, nothing tricky yet like 727 divided by 20.
Well, I was helping her the other day and one of their sets of division facts teaches that if you divide a small number by a large number the answer is zero. For instanct 5 divided by 10 is 0, 3 divided by 5 is 0. Now when she gets older and learns fractions/decimals she is going to have the learn the "right" answer to this type of division.
Has anyone else experienced this type of math with their kid?. Any teachers out there who can comment on this type of teaching? Am I being too weird about this?
No, I agree that this is ridiculous. It is one thing to omit certain things at first in order to teach progressively, but it appears to me that the fact have not been omitted, they are actually teaching false ideas.
If division of a number by one that is greater than it is not part of the current curriculum, it should be left out, and it certainly should not be taught incorrectly.
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No, I agree that this is ridiculous. It is one thing to omit certain things at first in order to teach progressively, but it appears to me that the fact have not been omitted, they are actually teaching false ideas.
If division of a number by one that is greater than it is not part of the current curriculum, it should be left out, and it certainly should not be taught incorrectly.
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perhaps the teacher tried to explain the concept of zero rather too early in the day
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Nothing wrong BUT you can't teach this without also telling them about the remainder. e.g. 5 ÷ 7 = 0 with a remainder of 5. Just like 12÷5 = 2 with a remainder of 2.
By the way, LOTS of teachers are teaching math with a gun to their head, so to speak. They didn't love the subject when they were in school and aren't much more at ease with it than the general population now. Don't get me wrong, teachers in general do a fabulous job, but math-phobia is unfortunately too prevalent in the public so it isn't surprising that some teachers don't fully embrace it, and so aren't as competent as they should be on this subject.
So if you happen to be good at it, get involved in the math education of your kids! I showed mine about the Pythagorean Theorem while building a staircase last summer, so even at age 9 and 11 they could appreciate the usefulness of it.
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(I'm a graduate student in math, and I teach Calculus.)
I think it depends. If your daughter is learning division *with remainder*, AND it is made very clear that the answer to 5 divided by 10 is not just zero, but zero with a remainder of 5, then it is all right. (If they are teaching this, they will presumably also be teaching things like 9 divided by 2 is 4 with a remainder of 1.)
If they have not talked about remainders in her class, and are just saying that five divided by ten is zero, period, then this is absolutely terrible. It is unacceptable to teach something blatantly false just because the real answer is "too complicated."
It is much better to teach the correct answers, and then when someone asks "How can we find five divided by ten?", to answer "It's possible to solve that problem, but we won't learn how to do it this year."
If she is, in fact, learning an answer incorrectly (as she is, if it is as you have described), then she may well be confused about division for a number of years (and with good reason!). I would definitely suggest talking to her teacher, and possibly her teacher's supervisor.
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