What is “Suzy’s Freaking Pocket Change”?

One problem with many math textbooks is that the application problems are nothing you would ever do. I call that kind of problem the “Suzy’s Freaking Pocket Change” category because if you had enough information to know that Suzy had $2.37 in her pocket in the form of 17 coins where there were twice as many nickels as quarters, you would have enough information to know how many dimes she has because you would have counted the change. When even the application problems are not actually applicable to any situation, the students have some excuse for thinking that the math strategy is not important. Usually, though, there’s an actually applicable application that’s taught later on to somebody, but here’s the sticking point: it’s quite possible that the teacher doesn’t know it either.

Read more about an actually applicable application problem at the Mathematical Musing on Systems of Equations, Part 0 (you’ll need to log in and sign up for Mathematical Musings, which is free, if you haven’t done so already)