It only matters that you got the right answer...

According to a story my Mom told me, as I was born close to the school year cutoff deadline for entering Kindergarten, they evaluated me to see if I should get a head start or if I should be left in the bottle a year longer to achieve "better balance and complexity".  When given some sort of test (wonder what it could have been?), they said that "I got all the answers right, but not in the usual way".  Gee, talk about a synopsis of my life!  Apparently they decided I must have be a bit on the tannic side, and left me on the rack.  I tell myself they always do that for extraordinary vintages....

Well, our younger daughter, in fourth grade must be having that experience.  Every week she brings home a "Friday folder", which includes all the work and other stuff she did that the school does not want anymore.  And all too occasionally I am a good parent and look through it to see what I can find to praise her on.

Well, I found something pretty amusing.

Math is something D loves to hate - she claims she "never has enough time to get the problems done".  And.. we I do homework with her, she does seem, er... pretty methodical.  But... I never knew how methodical she could be.  Here she is, on her own on a math unit test... let's take a look:

Exhibit A:

Now THAT'S what I call attention to a task.  Picture 300 valentines (amazing she didn't do hearts!), put them in boxes of 10 and then... count out the groups of 32.  And the CHECK... add up 32 a bunch of times.

Now I know why I had all that extra time after regents exams - I never drew enough pictures!

Well, truth be told, there is a downside to this... lets look a the next example:

No abstract silliness here!  Not only do we have a view of the cafeteria, we have kids with cloths and PLATES on the table!  And all patiently waiting!  I'm not sure, but.. I wonder now if the girls are the ones with dresses and the boys are just the round circles, like Charlie Brown's head.

I didn't scan the second part of this, but.. the question was:

If one more table of 8 kids is added, how many kids are eating lunch?

Well, looking at the picture above, I was expecting D to answer "none - can't you see they don't have any food yet!!!" or "They don't have silverware, silly!".  However, instead was written (quickly):

                                        No Time