Little Johnny came home from school one afternoon dragging his backpack like it weighed more than he did. His father noticed the look on his face immediately and asked what was wrong. With a sigh that sounded far too dramatic for a child his age, Johnny admitted he had received an F in arithmetic. His father froze, stunned. Johnny had always been sharp with numbers, faster than most kids in his class. Something didn\u2019t add up, and his father knew it. So he sat Johnny down and asked the obvious question: why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Johnny explained that the teacher asked, \u201cHow much is two times three?\u201d and he proudly answered, \u201cSix.\u201d His father nodded, confused, and said that was correct. Johnny agreed and said that\u2019s exactly what he told the teacher. But then, Johnny continued, the teacher asked another question. This time she said, \u201cHow much is three times two?\u201d Johnny shrugged as he recalled the moment, still clearly annoyed by it. He told her the same answer again: six.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At that point, Johnny said the teacher shook her head and marked it wrong. His father\u2019s eyebrows shot up. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t make any sense,\u201d he said. \u201cTwo times three and three times two are the same thing.\u201d Johnny nodded fiercely, clearly relieved that someone finally understood him. \u201cThat\u2019s exactly what I said,\u201d he replied. He told his father he even tried to explain it, but the teacher wouldn\u2019t listen and just kept writing on her paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The father felt his frustration rising. He paced the room, muttering about logic and fairness, convinced his son had been wronged. \u201cI\u2019m going to talk to your teacher,\u201d he said firmly. Johnny looked hopeful for the first time that day. He watched his father grab his coat, convinced justice was finally on the way. After all, math was math, and facts didn\u2019t change just because you flipped the numbers around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Later that evening, the father returned home unusually quiet. Johnny rushed over, eager to hear what happened. \u201cWell?\u201d he asked. His father sighed and rubbed his temples. \u201cSon,\u201d he said slowly, \u201cthe teacher explained it very clearly.\u201d Johnny\u2019s face fell. \u201cShe said the first question was multiplication,\u201d his father continued, \u201cand the second one\u2026 was the same.\u201d Johnny blinked. \u201cSo?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His father looked at him and said, \u201cShe failed you because after that, she asked how much five times four was, and you said \u2018twenty,\u2019 but when she asked four times five, you said, \u2018What\u2019s the difference?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Little Johnny came home from school one afternoon dragging his backpack like it weighed more than he did. His father noticed the look on his face immediately… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":173,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/intersting7hr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/intersting7hr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/intersting7hr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intersting7hr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intersting7hr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4758"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/intersting7hr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4759,"href":"https:\/\/intersting7hr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4758\/revisions\/4759"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intersting7hr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/intersting7hr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intersting7hr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intersting7hr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}