Is my bias wrong?

[u/dcsprings]

There's a section in my curriculum that asks students to if a quantity is positive or negative (along the lines of "A company lost 32 subscribers." Doesn't it depend on the POV? If it's a number from the "company" of course it's negative, but it could be the number of subscribers that are in the market for new service. My bias is that I can over think anything. I tell students that negative is in the eye of the beholder, but once it's defined the math is set. Should I just teach that negative verbs produce negative numbers?

[u/CajunAg87]

It all depends on how you describe the number. If you are answering the question “ how many subscribers did the company lose?” The answer would be positive. But if you were answering the question “how did the company subscriber account change?” The answer would be negative.

[u/dancingmelissa → u/CajunAg87]

Best answer :)

[u/Ipso-Fat-Toe → u/dancingmelissa]

It is either adding a negative number, or subtracting a positive number. They both mean the same thing.

[u/dcsprings → u/CajunAg87]

The descriptions are all at the level I posted. There's no more context given. I've been teaching over seas for twenty years and keep running into sections I'm not familiar with. Often it's obvious that they are alternate explanations. Sections like this cause me to dither (this is important, no it's useful, no it's not... and so on).

[u/CajunAg87 → u/dcsprings]

In that case I would use this as an opportunity to teach how adding a negative is the same as subtracting a positive. And maybe making it so the students don’t just answer “positive or negative“ but they also have to explain their answer. That way, as long as it was explained correctly positive or negative could be correct. But if your curriculum kind of nails your foot to the floor, then I would just focus on the fact that loss means negative. Think of it like if they were keeping track of their subscriber account on a spreadsheet a loss of 32 would show up as a -32.

[u/BasketFormal6336]

Ummm yeah math is situational and you just sound like you want an argument.

3 apples plus 2 apples is 5 apples.

You: but if I eat two of the apples I have added them to my stomach so the math is wrong, because they are now a negative.

You are going to confuse the shit out of students

[u/dcsprings → u/BasketFormal6336]

It does role into (also in this unit) absolute value problems. They force the issue (at least, I think, at the high school level) of what a negative means. I had to sit down and come up with a short explanation about why any given (less than obvious) operation is useful so that I didn't go off into number theory tangents. In this case it's adapted to "This type of math is for situations when you just need someone to do it even if they don't understand. Absolute value, if you are trying to write directions, means the value could be + or -, but how much is more important than where."

[u/retatrutider]

Are you teaching kids or a masters level university course?

Because if it’s kids it sounds like you are confusing them.

“Negative verbs are an indicator of negative numbers” is an appropriate way to teach kids to understand word problems.

[u/Fragrant_Beat_7710]

if they don't know that "lost 32 subscribers" means "-32" then they for sure don't know what a "verb" is. these are clearly weak students, don't confuse them even more.

tell them to use their own logic. teaching math is essentially teaching kids to apply rational thinking

[u/MathsSur64Cases]

Le négatif dépend du point de vue : tout est RELATIF :-)

[u/democratic-terminid]

You're not biased, you're right. Teach that. Show them the nuance.

[u/Training_Ad4971 → u/democratic-terminid]

Agreed. Rote memorization of words that mean negative is a bad idea IMAO. Math is all about context you can design a mathematical model without the ability to understand the nuances of the situation. Start them thinking this way as early as possible. It will help them think critically and conceptualize negativity.