10 Times Kids Made Adults Rethink Their Logic

At school, we are often taught how to write, count, or think “in the right way.” And there seems to be nothing wrong about it: order, system, algorithms. But the problem begins where the system leaves no room for our own way of thinking. So, children who think outside the box sometimes face distrust, judgment, or simply get misunderstood.

This article has stories just like this. Someone multiplied numbers in a non-traditional way and confused teachers, and someone wrote an essay “not like they were asked for,” and thanks to this they got their first well-deserved A.

The article uses images generated by artificial intelligence.

Some teachers believe that there is either their opinion or the wrong opinion.

• I am a math teacher. One day, a colleague from a primary school came to me and said, “One boy multiplies vertically incorrectly. But his answers are always correct. I don’t know what to do with him!” And she shows me this:

— No math errors, I said. — Congratulations! You have a child in your class who has done something that millions of schoolchildren can’t think of... multiplied numbers in his own way.
— What am I supposed to do with him?
— Let him multiply like this. Show him the normal way, let him choose which is better.
— He’ll choose, but how do I check the solution? And when he gets to secondary school, how will the math teachers feel about it?
What can I say? People with out-of-the-box thinking do have a hard time — not because they can’t cope, but because the world around them works in a different way. © smile2 / Pikabu

• There was an organics teacher at university who only accepted “her” solutions to problems. You could come with the right answer, write it differently — she’d cross out everything and say, “That’s not the way to do it. Do it my way.” It was useless to argue. © Kwout / Pikabu
• I also had a strange talent: I solved a problem with a mistake, but the answer was still correct. It’s unclear how, but the math teacher would look at me with slight horror. And it didn’t happen once or twice — it happened 10 times... © Kesta / Pikabu
• Most likely, the boy in this story was using the Indian multiplication method. So, he probably didn’t invent it himself. Though if he did, that’s all the more cool. © KapibaraEstArbuz / Pikabu

• At math lessons, our teacher often organized competitions: the first one to solve a problem got an A, the second one got a B, and the rest just kept working. I almost always won. While she was finishing the condition on the blackboard, I was already saying the answer. At first, it pleased her, then she said, “Give others a chance.”
  My classmates started to get angry — they couldn’t solve it first. At one point, she asked me to write out the full solution. I wrote. She read it and was surprised, “I’ve never seen it solved like that.”
  After the lesson I stayed in class, she decided to check my method on other problems. Out of 20 problems, it failed only on one. Either I was tired, or it was really impossible to solve like that. After that, I promised that from now on I would only solve problems “like in the textbook.” © O.DuBAH / Pikabu
• I’ve always loved reading. Ever since I learned to read, I never let a book out of my hands. At the age of 9, I was reading 2 or 3 books at a time — a school book and a couple “for myself.” I also wrote.
  But I hated school essays. Because I knew that we were expected to write template phrases, “correct” analyses and conclusions that coincided with someone else’s expectations, but not with my own opinion. I rarely got an A — not because I wrote badly, but because I expressed my point of view honestly. Only essays on free topics brought me the highest marks, they were read aloud and filed in the class archive.
  Only in the 10th grade, we had a new literature teacher who changed everything. She encouraged unconventional thinking and was ready to accept any point of view, even a controversial one, if you could justify it. The lessons became lively: arguments, discussions, even those who didn’t like reading started to get involved.
  I still didn’t get an “A” on the exam because of the essay where I had to talk about the importance of respect for elders, and I wrote that “old age always comes with the years, but wisdom... that’s another question.” But she gave me an A for the year for being able to think. And I’m still grateful to her. Partly thanks to her, I’m writing my book now. © Pand0rka / Pikabu
• We had a teacher in our school who was probably the worst teacher ever, she tortured everyone mentally by reducing marks, doesn’t matter how much of a good student anyone was! If you ask her doubts or question, she would hate you.
  So one day my English teacher asked me about my test. She mentioned my grades were not satisfactory, and she would take the test every day until I score decent marks. I was really good to be honest, I was speaking fluently, wrote a bunch of essays. Also got myself the best writer award in school, but I never knew what was wrong with her.
  So I decided to take a risk. I asked her about the next test, and she told me that she’ll let me know. I asked my principal to take my test for 3 days, and she did, she was really happy. After that I had a test at my home and my parents were also quite surprised with my result. I was solving all the questions.
  Finally, that freak teacher of ours wanted me to take a test and I wrote all the answers. The exam was of 1 hour (40 questions). After 2 days, she tried to call my parents and also complained to our principal that I got 5 out of 40. My principal was shocked as I scored really well in the test that was taken by her. So, our principal asked that teacher to show her my paper, she tried to manipulate her, but principal was confused and angry.
  So, she snatched the paper from the drawer and saw she intentionally gave 0 in almost all answers without checking. After that incident, all the students complained about her, and she was fired. We still laugh about that incident, and my friends tell me it was one hell of a plan by me. © Erfan Sheikh / Quora

Odd One Out problems

• The other day we were solving a problem: choose an odd object. My wife and I chose a plane,
  because it flies while the land vehicles don’t.
  The child chose a garbage truck. I asked him why, and he said, “A garbage truck carries garbage and the others carry people.” This is the difference between standard and non-standard ways of thinking. © MAREMAN / Pikabu
• The comments to tests like this usually emphasize that if a person can explain their choice, and it is logical, the answer is considered correct. After all, the point of the methodology is not to check the outlook, but to assess the ability to generalize. © Shelni / Pikabu

• Before the first grade, my son had a medical examination. One of the doctors is a psychiatrist. He gives my son tasks for logic. The first group of words is carrot, onion, cucumber, orange. The correct answer is orange, because it’s a fruit. Son:
  — The onion is odd. It’s not tasty.
  The second group is chair, plate, table, bed. Correct answer: plate, because it’s crockery. Son:
  — The bed is odd. It’s in the bedroom, and the other things are in the kitchen.
  The doctor laughed, but said: examination passed. © ya.dazheneznau / Pikabu

Young philosophers, or examples of children’s out-of-the-box thinking in everyday life

• I decided to ask my child whether he is an optimist or a pessimist. I asked him a popular question, “Do you see this glass of water? Do you think it’s half full or half empty?”
  After giving it some thought, he says, “Well, this glass is both half full and half empty.” Once again, I realized how unconventionally children think. © bad1611 / Pikabu
• The youngest one recently brought out clear and indisputable proof that Santa Claus exists. She simply said, “Well, you just don’t have that much money to buy the presents he brings!” All of us agreed that the logic was rock solid. © PivBear / Pikabu
• During the renovation, I stayed with my brother and his family. They have a son who is a 7-year-old philosopher. Parents are fighting, he calmly takes them by the hands and says:
  — Why fight when you can just look at the sky?
  And takes them to the window to watch the sunset. And if he doesn’t want to clean up, he lies on the floor and sighs:
  — Why complicate your life when you can make it easy?
  And falls asleep right there. And I sit next to him, almost 30 years old, and catch myself thinking, “Well, he’s right.” © Overheard / Ideer
• I was 5 years old. Every time my mom and I were on the bus, I couldn’t understand how the driver knew where we were going. We hadn’t told him anything. But he still took us where we needed to go. © Overheard / Ideer

Bonus: “out-of-the-box” parents

• My dad has always had an out-of-the-box mindset. When we needed a TV stand, but had no money, he decided to put the TV set on a stump.
  In winter, he and his friend dragged a pine stump on a sledge and barely managed to bring it up the stairs. And when it thawed, the house was filled with the scent of the forest, along with butterflies and bugs. The stump stood there for several years, then disappeared somehow. © Overheard / Ideer

And these stories prove that children feel the world differently.