12 plus 8 equals 4: If Joy picked 12 mangoes and Joe picked eight more mangoes more than she did, how many mangoes did Joe pick?
Conventional wisdom would suggest the answer is “20”, but for one first-grade math teacher somewhere in Thailand, the correct calculation is four.
A woman posting on Facebook on Tuesday as Phuan Pennapa wanted to know how her niece’s teacher could find fault with such a straightforward answer, on which the aunt even provided a little coaching.
The Facebook post – with a picture of the homework showing the niece’s response of “12+8=20”, and the teacher’s “X” mark and “correct” answer of “4” – quickly drew 5,000 reactions and was shared more than 10,000 times.
And that wasn’t all. The same homework assignment came back with “16+4=20” and “11+7=18” both also marked as incorrect.
The teacher tallied up the first sum as 12, and the second as 4 again.
The consensus among Facebook users was that the student’s answers were correct and the teacher’s brain function was not.
