I mean no offense, nor am I feeling argumentative, but somehow I find the math teacher's story suspicious.

School Yard, suspicious how?

If the story was about 3rd graders, I might wonder, 5th grade I would be disgusted, 12th grade I can't believe. Grade 12 and the square just don't fit for me. Of course, we don't know the context, or what students were working on, or anything else about the classroom situation. He says they were from the same elementary school and elementary school is a long way from grade 12. I can imagine a scenario or two though - the students are playing a teacher for all he is worth and have figured out that pushing the "understanding" button brings fun and fury. Or, he is loving the battle of correct vs not correct math education and any opportunity to dig in counts. Basically, it didn't seem legit.

Rest assured that it happened exactly the way it was presented. Good idea about "pushing the understanding button," but that wasn't the case either. What you and I would call "square-like" these kids would call a "square" just due to sloppy teaching, I'd imagine.

Thanks. If what you say is so, and I were queen for a day, this is the kind of school I would close down, no questions asked. I can handle a weak link here and there, but not 12 of them.

Whatever, I remember when I was in third grade. My teacher told me that I was wrong when I said that the our city's water had flouride in it. I kept repeating that it was true, our city put low levels of flouride in our water for the health benefits to our teeth. She berated me to tears in front of my classmates. That night, after I got home and told my father about the incident he explained that most teachers in America are "losers who took drank and smoked their way through and easy major in college" and not to waste my time trying to convince her. I beleived this until I had ONE truly good teacher in high school. Thank god he was a calculus teacher or i probably would not have become an engineer. Maybe kids don't trust teachers because so many of them are incompetent.

I find this not unusual; indeed, probably more common than we realize. I once worked for a major oil company as a Digital Control Systems Supervisor. One day while walking through the central control center (Where the refinery is controlled via a computer system), one of the senior operators stopped me and asked for my help. This person had worked their way up through the ranks over about 15 years. The help he was requesting was how to calculate a certain percentage of flow increase in a line. He had been ordered by management to increase production by 3%. He went to calculate the new flow rate and his percent key was broken on his calculator and he was at a loss as to how to properly calculate the new flow rate. After showing him how to calculate percentages without a calculator with a percent key, he was amazed at the simplicity of it. So, this has been going in for a vary long time; only getting worse: as indicated by those who can not make change if the cash register fails to tell them how much to give to the customer.

Herman, I guess my math teachers failed in their task (by today's standards): to this day I do not know how to use the percent key on a calculator.

You and me, both, Chett. I can't figure out the percent key on a calculator. But why bother? I can do sinple percentages in my head easily, and anything harder I can do quickly on scratch paper.

And I never could figure out my engineer husband's HP calculator with that d*** reverse-Polish garbage...

Josh and others that say students argue points with teachers because they know their teachers are incompetent. I'm middle-school teacher who sees this craziness a lot -- and it's not because the kids are so smart they "know" the intelligence or ignorance of the teacher. It's that they really are being raised with the idea that one way is as good as another, that everyone has his or her own way to do things, and that to suggest you do it the "correct" way is a personal insult to the student. It's kind of like being "disrespectful" to their identity to suggest that, say, capitals don't belong sprinkled willy-nilly throughout their writing. They'll just say that's how THEY DO it. (Shall I blame the elementary schools who love the latest educational fad, whatever it may be?) I usually end the discussion by putting 2+2=5 on the board and saying, "Well, that's just how I do math!" Most of them see my point after that.

Vladdy, as a math teacher, I get this all the time when I try to gently and politely insist on proper grammar and tone of voice by my students, in the hope that they'll be well served in the future if they can communicate with some decorum.

"That's the way I talk!" they yell back at me.

You write, "It's that they really are being raised with the idea that one way is as good as another..." Unfortunately, this is the central thesis behind moral equivalence.

Our kids aren't dumb, and they certainly pick up on these themes in society.

Oh, and congratulations if you're able to get them to see your point with the "2+2=5" example. When I've used that exact same illustration, they never concede my point. :-)