I remember being in elementary school--maybe 3rd grade or so--and having a complete lack of understanding of fractions. None of it made sense to me. I mean, none at all. I'm pretty sure that had I been raised in the city, I would have probably failed at life due to the inability to understand this stupid mathematical concept that places two numbers on top of each other with a line in the middle.
Thankfully for me, I wasn't raised in the city. Being a farm kid saved me from the life of horror that befalls people who can't learn fractions. How, you ask?
Allow me to introduce you to my friend, the feed can.
Every shower in America knows exactly where I'm going. When you feed sheep or pig or steers every morning and night, the instructions are always something along these lines: "The finewools get 3/4 a can, the crosses get a can and a quarter, the Hamp gets 1 1/4 of the feed with the orange tag--do you hear me? ORANGE TAG. And give the York 1/3 a can of beet pulp...." on and on.
You figure out real quick the difference between 1/4 and 1/3 and 2/3 and 3/4. Because I guarantee you come weighing time on Sunday afternoon, if things didn't make sense, someone was going to get a major lecture.
To this day, when I have to deal with fractions, I picture the feed in the feed can. Yea....us country kids do things a little differently!
4 comments:
LOVE LOVE LOVE! So true my friend. So true! I still hate fractions to this day and also envision that dang foldgers can! Pretty sure every show kid didn't just use any can, but use a foldgers small and large coffee can :)
~LOKG
Just reading this I could smell that sweet scent of Triple Crown, oats and the 150 supplements that I'm convinced should have required our barn be registered as a compounding pharmacy!
Oh my gosh you are SO RIGHT. If only I would have remembered this in school. Like, I was feeding sheep every single day and still couldn't do fractions in the classroom. Duh, Shae. Totally telling my brothers to remember the feed can tonight - this is so going to help the 13 year old with his homework. You rock!
Haha! So true. Who would have thought that a coffee can could be such a critical educational (and feeding!) tool?
-College Roomie
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