My 6th- and 7th-grade students are pretty effective at calculating with negative numbers. They all know, for example, that 5 – (-2) = 7. Ask them why, and you’ll hear this:
“Because two negatives make a positive!”
Then, if you listen carefully, you will hear something else: the low rumble of my teeth grinding together with tectonic force.
“Two negatives make a positive” is one of those math slogans that drives me crazy, because it is so pithy, so memorable, so easy to apply… while also being so vague and non-mathematical that I’m amazed students find it useful at all.
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