I was at a beauty school once, and decided to have my hair trimmed. Everything is done by students, but before they begin, the student must describe to the instructor what (s)he is going to do and is then judged on how close (s)he came to his/her description. I told my student what I wanted. Then the instructor asked her a question, and without any shame, she answered, “I don’t do fractions.”
I was in Wal Mart a few years ago right around this time of the year. A girl and her mother were shopping for her back—to-school supplies, and it was obvious from the conversation that the girl had spent at least one year away at college. Daughter was charged with keeping tabs on their spending and had a calculator for said job. They had just put something in the cart, and there was a little complaining from the daughter. Mom said, “Well, it was 4 of them, so just put in 4 times 7.” The daughter proclaimed, without so much as lowering her voice, that she could not do this, explaining that she was out of school for the summer.
Now, I am a math moron and I am embarrased by my lack of skills. but, next to this girl, I felt like Einstein.