This fifth-grade math question confused a teacher, a family, and half of Reddit

A fifth-grader’s math question sparked family drama over what seemed like a simple geometry problem.

When Redditor u/Awecalibur reviewed his niece’s math homework, he wasn’t expecting to spark a family debate, let alone an internet one. But the fifth-grade math problem in question was anything but straightforward. It asked: “How many rectangular faces does a hexagonal pyramid have?”

OP’s niece answered confidently: 0. Her teacher, however, marked it wrong, insisting the correct answer was 6. This disagreement quickly spiraled into what u/Awecalibur described to Newsweek as a “heated conversation” among family members. But instead of letting it go, he turned to Reddit, hoping to crowdsource the proper answer.

Redditors weighed in on the puzzling math question

In his Reddit post, u/Awecalibur explained, “My niece got this question wrong in math class today, with the ‘correct’ answer being 6.” But the reasoning behind the teacher’s answer didn’t sit well with him or fellow Redditors. According to the OP, the teacher explained that the hexagonal base could be broken into rectangles.

That logic didn’t fly with Reddit users. One commenter wrote, “That’s odd. With that logic, you could break those rectangles down into smaller ones, and on and on.” u/Awecalibur agreed and replied, “This is exactly what my niece told the teacher. The teacher insisted that it couldn’t be broken down infinitely.”

Another Redditor chimed in, “This teacher, like many before, only knows what the book says. If the book is wrong they’d never know.”

The online response overwhelmingly sided with u/Awecalibur’s niece. Many praised her curiosity and courage to question an answer that didn’t seem right. One user even turned the moment into a life lesson: “This my little girl, is what it’s like to have a job with an assertive boss. You know you are right, but rather than acknowledge that when you point it out to them, they get defensive and make up more stuff.”

“My guess is the teacher was embarrassed about being wrong, and in typical bad-teacher fashion doubled down and tried to explain away her fault, and failed miserably,” u/Wjyosn suggested.

Ultimately, persistence paid off. According to an interview the OP did with Newsweek, the teacher admitted the mistake in a follow-up conversation. The problem had a typo, and the question should have asked about triangular faces, not rectangular ones.

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