Mathematics for the 5th grade

One of these days the colleague Marina, usually quiet andjudicious, came to work in a state of marked emotional excitement. "What are our children taught at school! She exclaimed literally from the doorway. - Yesterday my daughter read me the condition of the problem in mathematics. I thought at first that she was acting out for me, so it was not - a task from a real mathematics textbook for the fifth grade, edited by Dorofeeva and Peterson. "Photo:Getty ImagesThe entire department was unanimously interested in what kind of problem could puzzle our Miss Balance so much. "I'll read it now!" Marina became excited, taking out her phone. "I specially photographed a page from the textbook so that you wouldn't think that I was entertaining you with Internet tales. Listen: "Cowboy Joe went into a bar and asked the bartender for a bottle of whiskey for three dollars, a pipe for six dollars, three packs of tobacco and nine boxes of waterproof matches, the price of which he did not know. The bartender demanded $14.80 (there are 100 cents in a dollar), to which Joe pulled out a revolver. The bartender recounted and corrected the mistake. How did Joe guess that the bartender was trying to rob him?" Silence fell over the department. Thoughts did not revolve around ways to solve the problem - they were so impressed by the "creativity" of the authors of the textbook. The strange contradiction was hard to wrap my head around: on the one hand, in the fight for the health of the nation, the law requires hiding display cases with cigarettes, cutting out scenes of smoking and drinking alcohol from good old films, recommending placing shelves with alcoholic beverages in the farthest sections of supermarkets, and on the other hand, the same law does not regulate the appearance of all these items in a textbook for fifth-graders. Therefore, instead of the balls and bunnies we are accustomed to, children now operate with bottles, pipes and matches. In a word, in the process of learning, they learn about life in all its diversity. But someone should probably edit the excessive everyday realism of the authors of textbooks for younger students so that their development occurs in accordance with their age? This way, the kids will soon begin to master the basics of counting on contraception and night butterflies. Another thing was alarming: the problem convinces schoolchildren that goodness must be with fists. Have you been deceived or offended? Immediately take out your revolver or whatever you have that is similar but no less frightening! There is no point in trying to get to the truth with words; you will be much more convincing with a gun. We asked a colleague if our daughter had solved the problem. “No,” Marina shook her head. “But she did want to know what whiskey tasted like, Pepsi or Sprite. And she was puzzled that she had never tried this drink before. My husband and I were also puzzled: what were the authors of this textbook smoking?” By the way, the problem has a completely rational mathematical solution. The cost of 3 packs of tobacco and 9 boxes of waterproof matches: S = 14.80 – 3 – 6, where 14 dollars 80 cents is the money the bartender demanded, 3 dollars is the cost of the bottle of whiskey, and 6 dollars is the cost of the pipe. S = 14.80 – 9 = 5 dollars 80 cents, or 580 cents. Let's assume that 1 pack of tobacco and 3 boxes of waterproof matches equals x. Then 3 packs of tobacco and 9 boxes of waterproof matches equals 3x. 3x = 580. x = 580 / 3, but 580 is not divisible by 3 without a remainder. So Joe could have guessed that they were trying to cheat him. It's just a pity that an advanced cowboy who can not only shoot but also count, attracted the attention of boys and girls to that side of reality from which the law protects them with all its might. Or not with all its might?