ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses common mistakes in math instruction and explains the misunderstandings behind them. After her children had learned all the four basic operations—addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division—and been exposed to parentheses and exponents, it was time for Jane to teach them the order of operations. Jane had learned a mnemonic when she was going to elementary school herself, and now she was about to teach the same thing to her own children. In actual fact, the rule regarding the order of operations states that addition and subtraction are on the same level and should be carried out from left to right. After Jane started teaching the order of operations, she quickly discovered that it is a great hurdle for her children to overcome because they, out of the habit they have formed so far of processing written information from left to right, tend to solve a mathematical problem from left to right.
