Has this ever happened to you: you're having a perfectly pleasant chat, about something completely innocuous (in our house, this often translates to "what's for breakfast/snack/dinner" or "is it time for me to play my DS now please please please"), when without warning the conversation takes a sudden turn into dangerous waters? This has happened twice in the past two days to me, courtesy of my darling children (naturally).
The first occurrence came last night during the deceptively serene, hushed time of day we like to refer to as: Homework Hour. Ten-year old Derek had completed his Math assignment and was awaiting my expert Mom-checking skills to approve his work so he could go play. There was one question where he was supposed to compare two graphs that presented the exact same data, in similar but subtly-different ways. The point was: to notice how the data could appear skewed, simply by the manner in which the researcher chose to set up his graph. Derek had initially missed the analysis part of the question, so when examining the graphs for a second time, he puzzled for a few moments, then abruptly jumped up and exclaimed, "Oh, I get it! In the second graph, the data will be clustered because of the interval!" Um, yeah! Precisely how I would have put it...Statistics Superboy. Believe it or not, it got worse from there. Clarifying another of his answers to me, he said, "Well, you don't have the numbers for this data set, so you don't know if there's an outlier." Right! I totally knew that! (Outlier? Like a number that's shunned, so lives apart from its number friends? Or a false number you can't trust?) Finally, we arrived at the last section, where he had to choose the correct option--among 'mean', 'median', and 'mode'--for organizing groups of numbers. Explaining his choice for one problem, he matter-of-factly stated: "I picked 'mean' because our teacher told us it's the most commonly used Measure of Central Tendency." Of course, sweetie, it's the...what you said!
At this point, statistically speaking, the probability of my brain shutting down in self-defense is: 100%. Who knew 6th-grade Math could be so 'mean'? (hahahaha! See, I'm losing it!) The only 'mode' I'm interested in right now goes on top of some warm apple pie! (mmmm, pie...) So here's a real-world math application for you: if Johna eats 2 slices of pie today (to help me forget the Number Trauma I've suffered), 1 tomorrow, and 3 the next day (before it goes stale, you know), what is the average number of calories she consumed? For Extra Credit: how many miles must she walk to ensure the pie doesn't permanently stick to her thighs? Answers are due by the end of the week, so get busy! (I'm going to get started on some pie...)
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