Every parent loves their children
Early in the morning 8 o'clock......
"Ring ring... ring ring~~"
Ali's mother picked up the phone...
Phone : "Morning mdm, are you Ali's mother?"
Ali's mother : "Ya, apa?"
Phone : "I am afraid you have to come to school now as Ali was caught cheating in class during a test, by his form teacher, Mr ahxings."
Ali's mother immediately rushed to the school to look for Ali and his teacher. Upon reaching, she went to Ali and asked him...
Ali's mother : "Sayang, tell ibu! Did u cheat?"
Ali : "No siah! I never cheat lah, chiku anyhow say one lah, he bedeh lah!"
Mr ahxings placed 2 slips of the test papers on the table and show Ali's mother.
Mr ahxings: "Mdm, please look at these 2 test papers. The one on the right written in black ink belongs to your son Ali, the other one on the left written in blue ink belongs to another student, which Ali copied from."
Ali's mother picked them up and look at the 2 papers...
Ali's mother suddenly became defensive and argued...
Ali's mother : "~chear, I think u are being bias u know? You think my son cannot get the correct answers isit? Maybe Ali this time really got study and know how to do all the questions leh? And I believe my son, he said he din cheat... means HE DIN CHEAT!"
Mr ahxings got quite irritated and annoyed by Ali's mother's behavior, however as a teacher, he kept his cool and calmly explains to her...
Mr ahxings : "Dear mdm, please calm down... I understand that every parents love their children, however the truth is still the truth... In case you did not see properly, I would appreciate it if you will look at the 2 exams papers properly again. Look carefully......"
Ali's mother looked down at the papers again, she examined every questions and answers, and looked through the entire papers thoroughly...... then suddenly!
Mr ahxings : "...yes mdm, I think you had also discovered it by now... Ali even copied the name of the other student......"
posted by In case i died while running.... @ 12:38 AM
6 comments
6 Comments:
To ahwee,
Part II will make the story too lengthy and deprives the story of its momentum, thus after a careful consideration, i decided to cut it.
To rusty,
Yes, the 'maths' part is my shu hu, i overlooked this point during my chuang zhuo. For this i apologise. As for Qn 5, there is no mistake, the ans is still 5 plates, reason - it is not stated in the test paper that ali is muslim, thus he can eat pork.
regards
ahxings
To rusty,
You have answered ur own qn, its stated in the qn that its MOHAMAD, not MOHAMMED, it can be a new christian name, thus, ur argument is still not valid. Thank.
regards
ahxings
To rusty,
As i have said earlier, even though MOHAMAD is a muslim name as u have mentioned, it still does not be necassary that he is a muslim. Juz like there are many non-christians with christian names. Dun worry too much, cos if the ans is meant to be 0, then it will be stated in the paper that MOHAMAD is a muslim, but by then, the test is not pure maths alone, but also on social studies and religious studies... U are being too complicated. But i appreciate ur effort. Thank again!
regards
yuxing
To rusty,
As you have said urself, we should not be dwelling too much on whether MOHAMAD is a muslim anot, thus the question is only focusing on how many plates of 2 dollars pork chop can 10 dollars fetch. Its purely maths. U also emphasised that its for primary school children, thus they will not into so many different aspects of the question. Maths question is purely a maths question. To strengthen this point of mine, i will give u another sample question. "Ah Keong had $5, each bowl of beef noodles cost $2.50, how many bowls of beef noodles can he buy at most?" The ans is simply 2 bowls. Because it is not stated that Ah Keong is a Buddhist who cant eat beef, thus students are to assume the ans of this question in just a mathematical term. No religious, social and ehtical issues to be complicated in such questions. However for the benefits of some of the students who assumed that MOHAMAD is a muslim, if he put the ans as 0, i will accept is ans as correct, ONLY if he included the comment beside his ans that assuming MOHAMAD is a muslim. ie. "0 plate. (assuming MOHAMAD is a muslim)" I will accept this ans for this time round only, as students are required to raise their doubts to the teacher immediately during the test to clarify them and not to make assumptions on their on. But since they its the 1st time they are taking such a test, i will give them this benefit of doubt. (for your info, none of the students did that, thus there is no issue regarding this conflict of ans) Thus still for qn 5, MOHAMAD is taken as a SIMPLE HUMAN BEING and $10 as his AVAILABILITY TO PURCHASE DIFFERENT NUMBER OF PRODUCTS, using MATHEMATICAL METHODS. I hoped i managed to clarify ur misunderstandings. Again i truly appreciate ur concern for my students. Thank again and again.
regards
ahxings
To rusty,
As i have said many times earlier, Mohamad is only taken as a PERSON, religion, and other issues such as social aspects, ethic issues are not to be considered. If the school wants the students to take them into consideration, it will be stated in the paper. If all aspects must be taken in, then alot of assumptions will be stated in, such as WHO THE PORK CHOP IS BOUGHT FOR, WHAT REASONS IT IS BOUGHT FOR, WILL THERE BE DISCOUNTS IF MORE THAN A NUMBER OF PLATES ARE PURCHASED AT THE SAME TIME etc etc. The test qn will thus be complicated. However the qn is only mathematically based. With Mohamad taken only as a PERSON, irregardless of his religion. Even though u claimed that Mohamad MUST be a muslim, however u are only also ASSUMING it so. There is still no concrete evidence that says that Mohamad SURELY IS A MUSLIM. In fact, Mohamad may not even be a Malay, he can be a Chinese, a Indian, or any other races with any religion, or even a free thinker.
There is also another very important issue that will arise if u claim that the ans is 0. What if a student gives a ans of 5, even though he assumed that Mohamad is a muslim? He can easily explains that Mohamad disobeyed the rules in his religion and consumed pork. Thus by thinking according to ur way will only invite more conflicts. The intial thinking of the school to let Mohamad be just a person assuming any religion and race is then the correct approach as that will only lead to the result of 5 plates.
As for the part that i will give chance for this time to allow the ans 0 with a stated reasoning by the student is because i wanted to use this chance to teach the students how to correctly tackle the qns and see the meanings in the qns. Not drift far and ponder into other unnecessary issues as tat will hinder their thinking and waste time in answering the qns.
Regarding ur concern about the example abt ah keong, since u said that keong may not means he is a buddhist, Mohamad may also not means he is a muslim. Same logic here. The only thing is that u have been biting on to ur claim to strongly such that u totally avoided or i would say rejected the fact that Mohamad is not a muslim.
As for now, all students are thinking in the right way, they know the correct way of tackling and interpreting the qn, thus its a concrete prove that the teaching method and the test qns are correct. From a statical view, from all over the level in our school and each and every individual class, 0 students have committed the mistake of assuming Mohamad is muslim and no. of plates is 0. That gives a 100% prove to the correctness of the qn. Thus the probability of it being an error in the qn paper is simply 0.
Kindly pls think thru these points. Ur comments are all taken in seriously and greatly discuss by the school committee, however all of us agreed that ur assumption is not valid. Thank you for you concern, once and again.
regards
ahxings
To rusty,
In order to make things simple i will put my explainations in pt form.
1. U still cant give a concrete evidence that Mohamad is a muslim who cant buy pork.
2. Ur analysis is based on a NORM that Mohamad is usually a muslim name.
3. By using general analysis, statistic and probability must be included. And it will not be able to yield a 100% possibility that Mohamad is muslim.
4. Thus by saying that my use of statistic that this qn is 100% correct is inappropriate, u are contradicting ur stand on generalising that Mohamad must be a muslim.
5. Different environment will yield different results, different ppl have different views, even if i uses other names for the qn, some other ppl will also have their opinions on that. After deep consideration, Mohamad is still an appropriate name for the qn.
Thank you times and again for ur opinions. Ur views are greatly appreciated, but i would hope that you would keep ur arguments short and sweet. Thank once again.
regards
ahxings
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