Monthly Archives: December 2013

I was talking with Griffin one day when he was in third grade.

Me: Do you know what $latex 12\div 2$ is?

Griffin (8 years old): 6

Me: How do you know that’s right?

G: 2 times 6 is 12.

Me: What about $latex 26 \div 2$?

G: 13

Me: How do you know that?

G: There were 26 kids in Ms. Starr’s class [in first grade], so it was her magic number. We had 13 pairs of kids.

Me: What about $latex 34 \div 2$?

G: Well, 15 plus 15 is 30…so…19

My notes on the conversation at this point only have (back and forth), which indicates that there was probably some follow-up discussion in which we located and fixed his error. The details are lost to history.

Our conversation continued.

Me: So $latex 12 \div 2$ is 6 because $latex 2 \times 6$…