Agnes by Tony Cochran for November 17, 2015

Single-handedly? Agnes, I think you’ve been immensely helpful in that endeavor.

(Side Note to Teacher and Principal): Ten days ’til Thanksgiving and four days off; you can DO IT!

I hate anti-math “jokes” coming out of girls’ mouths. So old. So wrong.

‘Word problems’ to help you ‘enjoy’ math. Who enjoys word problems???

The new scientific research says men’s and women’s brains are the same.

That said….I still HATE WORD PROBLEMS! In fact I hate most math.

(By the way, politicians frequently propose solutions which are ineffective because they don’t understand the problem and its cause, frequently making the problem worse or creating unrelated problems.)

The strip does not portray Agnes as “anti-math” as such. She is simply skeptical of schemes designed to help you “enjoy math.”

Word problems? I think Tony Cochran means short stories. I’ve heard of people who can do math problems, but don’t understand how math figures in short stories. Such as adding up someone’s coins, or the sum of the coins given to someone else. Or two classes, one of which is half girls and the other described as 3 out of every 5 students are girls; same number of children in each class, so which class has more girls?

Ag80.. yes… but in American schools, depending on the school district or on the textbooks used, those are called “word problems” or “story problems.”