I was helping my son with a math problem that was asking if the person in the story could estimate to see if they had enough money to buy two things. One thing cost $11.95 and another cost $3.95. Could they estimate how much it cost and be certain that they had enough money? My son said no, and I told him it was yes, because you could round up, and if you had at least $16 then you could be certain that you had enough. The person who wrote the math problem agreed with me. My son then explained to me that if the person had $15.50 or $15.55 for that matter, they should not be certain by estimating. I realized that my son was right, and that I and the math problem writer were wrong. How would you respond?
It was one of the happiest moments of my life, to see my son finding flaws in my own logic and the logic of the math expert. I told him so. Our children will continue to find forgotten dimes, and those forgotten dimes may be ignored by us or celebrated by us. I hope that today's Christian family children find forgotten dimes in our logic, in our ethics, in our theology, and that we have the wisdom to celebrate them.
No comments:
Post a Comment