Grade 4 student homework goes viral amongst Thai netizens. The picture that went viral is a picture of a single page of math homework posted on 30 June 2019 by Facebook User Suradech Wongkuan. The homework requires students to solve mathematical equations and then convert the answer into English words.
In order to solve the homework, the grade 4 students require decoding skills similar to Conan the Detective Cartoon from Japan or to give a better picture Sherlock Homes from the famous Western series of books and movies. For example, the answer to a math equation 8055 comes to a correct decoding answer of [BOSS]. Then the answer then needs to be translated to the correct translation in the Thai language.
The homework is very bizarre, thus gaining the large numbers of shares on Social Media through the online world. The method to check what the correct English decode from the mathematical answer is to flip the letters in the calculator to the other side similar to a mirror reflection and other methods include replacing the numbers with letters that look similar to the numbers.
The page begins with giving 2 examples. The first example is (16×500)+(11×5) = 8055 = BOSS and the second example is 305+(110×700)+40 = 77345 = SHELL. The question has answers as follow.
819 = BIG
7105 = SOIL
53045 = SHOES
5637 = LEGS
200 = ZOO
7738 = BELL
3507 = LOSE
7108 = BOIL
7734 = HELL
The letters in Thai are the Thai language translations to the English words after the decoding is done. The homework ties two subjects together with math and English with problem-solving by decode method. Hopefully, the same method can be adapted to real life situations that the children have to face as they grow old.
Although extremely confusing and rare, netizens comments mostly have a humorous touch to the comments. For example, one comment stated “This will help train our kids to be detectives” and another comment stated, “The homework is not hard but definitely advanced”.
