New Math

Instructivist is forever poking fun at all things absurd and incomprehensible in education methodology. But he might be taking it too far with this example:

A farmer sends his daughter and son out into the barnyard to count the number of chickens and pigs. When they return the son says that he counted 200 legs and the daughter says she counted 70 heads. How many pigs and chickens does the farmer have?

Now if that isn’t practical, what is? How many times, for example, have you asked your kids to go out and count the chickens and pigs only to have them return with some sorry old excuse for an answer?

What I want to know is this: How did I manage to raise kids so plumb stupid that they counted heads and feet instead of critters? I’d be busier than a farmer with one hoe and two rattlesnakes trying to make up for all those days I had them shuckin' the corn when they shoulda been cypherin’ over at the schoolhouse.

Or was this whole unsavory mess my fault? Should I forget about educatin’ and just brush up on my communicatin’ skills?

Tarnation, it gets me edgier than a one-eyed cat watching nine rat holes just thinking about it.