My middle child is in first grade. Tonight, she was doing some math homework in front of me; specifically, she was finding “number partners” that add up to 10. The first four questions have one side of the partnership filled in – 9, 8, 7, 6 – and she’s supposed to write the other part. She correctly writes 1, 2, 3, 4. Then the last question has both sides blank, leaving her to put in both of the “number partners.”
Without hesitation, she writes “10” and “0.”
The lesson I learned: no matter how sure you are of the right answer to something, someone can still surprise you – they can come up with something totally different than what you came up with, and still be right.
The Opportunity Machine 