Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally, she is a liar.

Short post from the other side of the pond.

If you’ll recall from my last article, I’m not just in England on a seven week vacation.  I’m student teaching.  And ladies (and gentlemen), “universal math skill” is the biggest lie you’ve ever been told.

I’m sure if you attended grade school in the United States, you learned something called PEMDAS.  This is an acronym for Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication,  Division, Addition, and Subtraction.  This is how you math.  Everyone in the States is taught that everyone solves an equation in this order, and that is how everyone on the planet can be connected to the same math and science and get the same answer anywhere.  So your pal in England can check your homework, right?

WRONG.  Here’s why:

In England, they don’t use PEMDAS!  They use BODMAS or BIDMAS (Brackets, Order or Integer, Division, Multiplication, Addition, and Subtraction).  They divide before they multiply!

Now I’m no math wiz, but I’m pretty sure we can throw the word “universal” out the window right now.  Don’t you feel cheated?  I sure do!  You’d think even if language was different, numbers are the same no matter where in the world you are.

There is debate as to whether this actually makes a difference or not.  Looking on different forums, people have said that multiplication and division are the same thing, so you just work left to right.  Other people disagree.

What do you think?  Let me know in the comments section!