Occasionally, when people first discover we homeschool, they take it upon themselves to quiz my children. And when they discover that the children are not complete idiots, they more-than-not show shock and surprise.
Once, many years ago, Rob took the kids to the library where he ran into an acquaintance. Upon learning the children were homeschooled, he set to testing them. Elated at their positive answers, he thought he had come up with a question sure to stump them. He turned to my 8-year-old son and said, "I'm going to give you the hardest multiplication question in the world. If you get it right, I'll give you a dollar!" Taking a dollar from his wallet, he asked, "What's 8 times 7?" Well, before 8-year-old son could utter a sound, our 4-year old jumps up and down exclaiming, "56, it's 56!!!"
The man, absolutely blown away, gives 4-year-old daughter the dollar. (Said son is still mad about being ripped off.) Rob gets home and, beaming from ear to ear, can't tell the story fast enough to me. He didn't realize what a genius his child was. But then she has great genes! Maybe this homeschooling thing works after all!
I then had to burst Rob's bubble and tell him that 8 times 7 was the ONLY math fact 4-year-old daughter knew. If the man had asked her 1 times 1, she probably would've said 2. You see, we had this multiplication cassette tape from Scholastic that we listened to in the car. There was this one song with only the words, "8 times 7 is 56" over and over again. Said daughter sang it all the time.
I wonder if, nine years later, that man is still telling the story to all his friends about the genius homeschooled 4-year old.
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7 comments:
That is REALLY funny!
Hmm, how sad is it that I had to think about what 8*7 is when I saw the title on this post? :-D
Hey Michael, would you like me to send the multiplication cassette to you? Or, I could bring it with me to the RTL March and we can listen all the way to DC ;-).
LOL!
Smiling.....just love it!
the other Maureen
My eldest (15yo) now attends an international English language high school. A number of her teachers are impressed with her knowledge of science and history as well as her math ability. And they are equally surprised that most of her education was at home. :)
I'll bet we could get the bus driver to play it over the PA... then everyone could enjoy math facts the whole way to DC!
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