Three Little Pigs homework question leaves parents scratching their heads

A mum has blasted her daughter’s teacher for marking her answer incorrect.

A mum has blasted her daughter’s teacher for marking her homework incorrect, despite the primary school student giving the proper answer. 

Mallory, a mother and author from the US, was talking to her daughter about a test she recently completed at school. 

Her daughter, who is in grade two, was tasked with reading The Three Little Pigs and asked a series of questions about the classic children’s fable. 

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The teacher marked the answer incorrect. Picture: mallorythomas_writes/Threads

“She isn’t wrong, though?” 

Now, you’re probably aware of the story of the Three Little Pigs, but I’ll sum it up quickly for those who haven’t read it. 

Basically, three little pigs were building houses for themselves: one made of straw and another of sticks, which were both built quickly; the final house was created from bricks, and the last pig took his time to build it. 

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Along came the Big Bad Wolf, who tried to enter the first pig’s house, which was made of straw; when the pig refused to let him in, the wolf blew his house down. The same thing happened to the second pig, who built his house with sticks. 

However, when the wolf approached the final pig’s house, he started facing trouble. Since the house was made of bricks, the wolf couldn’t blow it down, leaving the pig to live safely. 

OK, back to the story at hand. 

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At school, Mallory’s daughter was asked to answer a series of questions about the fable, including the “surprising” things she learned and the moral of the story. 

“What important lesson did you learn from the Three Little Pigs?” read the question on the quiz. 

“You need a brick house,” answered the child. 

Based on the plot of the story, it seems like the logical answer, right? Nope, that was incorrect, according to the teacher, who marked the answer with a big blue cross. 

Apparently, the moral of the Three Little Pigs was: “Don’t trust strangers”. 

Huh? Was that really the moral of the story? 

Are we reading the same fable?

If anything, the real lesson in the story was “hard work pays off”; the last pig took its time to build a house made from bricks, instead of taking the easy way out with straw or sticks and relaxing. 

After seeing the correction on her daughter’s test, Mallory was irate. She took to Threads to share her dismay with the teacher, arguing her daughter “wasn’t wrong, though”. 

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“This is why teachers need to learn how to ask questions properly”

The post didn’t take long to go viral, with hundreds of others unable to wrap their heads around the teacher’s unusual correction.

One comment read: “What an objectively wrong answer. None of the pigs trusted the wolf. Only the one who was smart enough to build a brick house saved them.”

“Nobody trusted the wolf; he just beat their houses down,” another said. “Kid is right, get that home security.’ 

Others accused the teacher of missing the point of the story. “Did the teacher pay attention to the story?” someone asked. “The Three Little Pigs is not about stranger danger. It’s about thinking strategically toward long term goals vs short-term,’ another penned. 

“They never trust the damn wolf; he just comes along and trashes their houses and tries to kill them,” a person chimed in. “They actively refuse to let him in because they know he's dangerous.”

Importantly, many highlighted the question itself. “Reeling from the idea that someone could get a question wrong that is phrased ‘what did YOU learn?’” a person wrote 

“I thought this was an open-ended question,” another added.

“See, this is why teachers need to learn how to ask questions properly,” a woman commented. “What lesson did I learn? Or what lesson did you tell me it was teaching?”

“Imagine asking a child ‘What did *you* learn’, then telling them that they're wrong,” another agreed.

Some wondered if the teacher was getting confused with another famous fable featuring a Big Bad Wolf. 

“Hmmm, I think she was thinking of Little Red Riding Hood?” read a comment. 

Originally published as Three Little Pigs homework question leaves parents scratching their heads