Before we start, if any of you folks have access to a Dick and Jane reader (1st Grade), take a look and see if there was a story called “I Am.”
Last night Samson and I were playing the Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader board game. Another adult, Carol, was playing with us.
Samson was up and chose a question for a First Grader. The question involved triangles. I heard the words “triangle” and “equal” and knew the answer was equilateral.
“Oh!,” said Sam, “This is an easy one.” And he wrote something down.
As I ran the “When I was in first grade we were learning ‘See Spot run’ and nothing about triangles” thought around in my head Samson announced his answer: Congruent.
While I was impressed Samson even knew the word congruent… well, being impressed is all I got here; I was impressed he knew the word but was not terribly distressed he was incorrect as it was a game and, by God!, we play to win at the Wells household.
And, honestly, there’s nothing to be ashamed of when it comes to messing up the Congruent/Equilateral difference. So long as you’re in elementary school and not designing bridges.
Sam pulled the answer card through the special decoder window and announced the answer.
Which, as you can probably guess, was: Congruent.
I had “Isosceles,” said Carol. It would seem she’d keyed on “two” and “equal” as the question was something like, “If two triangles have equal sides and angles they are what?”
Samson, I’ll point out, is in 5th grade. I’m not sure he was introduced to congruence in 1st grade, but he still knew the answer.
Meanwhile, back when I was in 1st Grade I came across, I think, a story called “I Am” in our Dick and Jane reader. And I remember having the hardest time with it. I believe I saw it as “Iam,” – maybe it was the two vowels in a row… in any case I remember a classmate starting to read the story and having just a second of embarrassment to myself at not knowing it.
These kids now days are scary smart. I don’t think we studied congruent triangles until 10th grade.
I passed Geometry because I introduced the teacher to MTV – back when it was a new station and played music videos. Iam not smarter than a 5th grader or Dick and Jane.
All I can say is, be thankful you’ve been blessed with some very smart sons to help you out with designing bridges and winning games!
The stuff my kids bring home scares me to death! I like to think that I have half a brain cell or so, but they just stump me with their homework; unless it’s Maths (yes plural and don’t start on me!) and then I’m good to go
I don’t know many kids (their parents tend to keep them away from me as I’ve been rumored to grill them up for lunch), so I don’t know what they’re teaching kids these days. But I do remember Dick and Jane quite well. If I’m not mistaken, the dog was Spot and the cat was Puff. I think there was a little sister named Sally, too.
As for the triangles… I always hated any type of math. I apparently knew that small calculators and computers would be invented that would help me in those areas. And I’ll be damned if I wasn’t right. Just call me Nostradamus.
I remember Dick….in the book! I was never able to help any of my kids with math after the fifth grade. It was far too complicated for me. My kids all made it through high school without any help from Mom…Thank God!
My mother has a set of classic readers, but I can’t remember if they’re Dick and Jane or another series. I’ll try to remember to look next time I’m there.
Those books were always a bit of an issue for me because I looked a bit like their younger sister, Sally. So, anytime we’d read Dick and Jane in school, other kids would call me Sally for days.
I remember Dick, too (in the book). Although, I do not remember Amanda bringing home anything about congruent triangles in First Grade; however, she is learning algebra in the Third Grade, so she probably did and I have just blocked it out. Funny that I would remember Dick but not math…
I seem to recall that we had John and Betty in prep 1972, instead of Dick and Jane.
Bill: And I seemed to have forgotten about congruence about the time I graduated from high school.
Cap: I love the “Iam” you included. lol
Geeky: You should have seen the Connect Four battle we had going. The boys kept seeing things I missed over and over.
Lady P: Maths would be super hard. I have trouble with just one Math. (I’d swear my kids are doing things differently than we did 35 and 40 years ago.)
Emma: Spot and Puff were the pets, and Sally the little sister. If you’d like, my kids can summer with you — that should stir the neighbors up a bit.
Metalmom: Wait a minute … I thought I read when you say, “I’m sleepy and going to bed” it was perceived as an invitation for a little bit of “Fun With Dick and Jane.”
Sally: I always looked a bit like John Davidsion. Not in elementary school, but high school. I had some issues with that.
Ginger: I seem to block out math only moments after I encounter it. Sam brings some home once in a while … and I have a vague memory of Jack doing fractions. But that’s all that comes to mind.
Michael: Did John and Betty have a cat and dog? Or something more exotic (by US standards)?
I actually failed geometry the first time I took it. I also routinely have to google things that my daughter has for homework (5th grade) because I don’t remember them from school. I would not be good at that game.
Tori: I can’t recall all the things I’ve had to Google in order to figure out some of the things my kids have brought home from school.
My kids brought home the three-point-five paragraph/essay organization structure in 3rd grade. They didn’t teach that to us until Advanced Placement English in grade 12.