Edit: It will never cease to make me laugh that I get more genuinely serious discussion comments on my meme posts in /c/Memes than anywhere else. I'm not hating, I love it.
Edit 2: Chicago-Style deep dish pizza isn't pizza go fuck yourself
this post was submitted on 19 May 2025
1273 points (97.5% liked)
memes
14833 readers
4583 users here now
Community rules
1. Be civil
No trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour
2. No politics
This is non-politics community. For political memes please go to !politicalmemes@lemmy.world
3. No recent reposts
Check for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month
4. No bots
No bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins
5. No Spam/Ads
No advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live.
A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment
Sister communities
- !tenforward@lemmy.world : Star Trek memes, chat and shitposts
- !lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world : Lemmy Shitposts, anything and everything goes.
- !linuxmemes@lemmy.world : Linux themed memes
- !comicstrips@lemmy.world : for those who love comic stories.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
The vast majority of people do not understand fractions. Even math teachers do not understand fractions. I quiver in horror every time a student says the words “cross multiply” because I am about to see some gruesome debasement of mathematics.
I had to remind myself exactly what the point of cross multiplying is.
…it’s essentially just a label given to a specific set of algebraic operations. That it even has a name seems stupid to me. We shouldn’t focus on memorizing specific cases like this when understanding why it works will get you there just as quickly. Heck in the case of cross multiplying, I think it works against the interests of the students’ learning. It’s a shortcut that hides the fact that you’re multiplying both sides by both denominators, when “do the same thing on both sides of the equals sign” is algebra 101.
Exactly. The problem is that they will also start “cross multiplying” any time they see a fraction. “Okay, so what do I need to do if I want to add 3/4 + 1/3?” And then they’ll say “cross multiply”?
Just say - “hey, the way to get rid of the denominators is to multiply everything by the LCD.” Then it works in all cases. No weird “one trick” that doesn’t really teach them anything.
(But, where I live - the people teaching math don’t understand math lol.)