The New Math

When my kids were in elementary school they were still getting problems like "if a train leaves the station at 8:00..."

This is silly math. Firstly, well, if they're in the station we've broken the law: the station is a casino. Secondly - read the schedule if you want to know when a train arrives somewhere. Not that the schedule will be correct, but neither would you calculations be.

They need to have a problem to work on, the solution to which would be useful. For instance:

If you do two loads of laundry a day, and create enough dirty clothes for a half load a day, and every Saturday you only do one load of clothes but two sets of sheets, and every fifth day regardless of the day of the week you do no laundry at all because back off I'm not a machine, how long will it take to finish the laundry backlog that consists of one and a half large tubs of dirty clothes, a pile of who knows what at the end of the hall that appeared unexpectedly when the girl "cleaned" her room and the various assorted and virtually identical black hoodies and t-shirts from the boys bedroom floor?

Now THERE'S an answer that I would find useful.