So student I have never met before comes into the lab on the second to last day of the quarter to finish a project. He asks for help on the computer. No problem, that’s my job.

Then- problem.
“Can you show me how to multiply these numbers?”
I go over, take a look, happy to help until I see that he is trying to do a spreadsheet in a drawing program. “No, you can’t multiply in a drawing program, here’s the calculator”.

Five minutes later…

“Uhm, is there a better calculator?”

“Why?”

“This won’t do percents, there’s no percent sign”.

Dear gawd- I am here to teach computers. I am not here to teach eight grade math. But I do.

“A percent is a part of a whole. There is never a percent sign on a calculator. You can multiply it by .15 to get 15 percent and then add that to the original number or you can multiply it by 1.15 and skip the adding part”.