Miss Jones teaches mathematics at a school. In
one of her classes, the boys and girls are about eight years old, and there are
not very good at arithmatic. Miss Jones always tries to make the work
interesting and amusing as well as useful.
One day she gave them a question; ‘if you go to the market to buy
vegetables,’ she said, ‘and a carrot and a half cost twelve pence, how much
will you have to pay for a dozen carrot?’
The pupils began to write in their exercise-books, and for a long time
nobody spoke. Then one boy put his hand up and said, ‘Could you repeat the
qustion, please, Miss ?’
The teacher began, ‘If a carrot and a half---‘, but the boy interrupted
her.
‘Oh, a carrot and a a half ?’ he said. ‘All this time I’ve been trying to
work it out in cabbages, Miss.’