I've often recalled that episode of Diff'rent Strokes where Arnold fails a private school admissions exam because of cultural differences. In protest, Mr. Drummond has the school's headmaster take his own sort of exam. One of the questions was "How many people can sleep in a 3 bedroom home with double-beds in each room?" (or something like this.) The answer wasn't six, but instead was a much larger number. When the shocked headmaster learned his answer was incorrect, Arnold listed all the different places people could sleep: certainly at least 3 or 4 people could sleep in each double bed, for example. Arnold finished off his sleeping arrangements with a dramatic, "... and one in the bathtub!"

Indeed, I've slept in a bathtub before, but that's not really the story I'm telling today.

Frequently I've seen situations like this where the "accepted answer" is different than the one with creative solutions. Although I might not house a guest in my bathtub, I'd definitely consider a couch a viable sleeping option. And perhaps there is an inflatable mattress in the garage? Certainly we have a mat since our son is a gymnast, and it is pretty comfy, if I do say so myself.

In some ways, creative thinking should be rewarded, not checked off as being "wrong." But even so, I made Splig amend an interesting answer he wrote on his math homework this evening: When asked whether people like to pay with different denominations of coins or coins with equal value, he chose the former. His explanation was that people would love to have a collection that had all kinds of beautiful shapes and sizes and colors of coins! (Indeed, his room is a "collection" of all kinds of "beautiful" things.) After some discussion, he agreed that probably the math company wanted him to select the latter, so he wrote that some people might find it easier to count multiple coins of the same denomination.

After all, the purpose of the assignment was to think about math, not about beauty. (Although both my boys will insist there is much beauty in math.)