Geometry homework: Is this cheating?
Here’s a question for you…
Let’s say that my daughter’s taking Geometry and the homework assignment from her textbook asks her to prove that the three perpendicular bisectors of the sides of a triangle are concurrent (i.e., they intersect in a single point).
She tries. She’s successfully worked other Geometry proofs in the past. She’s even successfully done other proofs tonight. But she’s stuck on this one. Even after she tries again. Even after she takes a break and comes back to it. Even after her dad, whose high school Geometry-related memory faded long ago, takes a peek to see if he can give her a few tips. For whatever reason – she’s tired, she’s confused, she’s had it up to here with Geometry this evening, whatever – it’s just not clicking.
Now let’s also say that there’s a step-by-step proof available to her on the Web. The proof literally walks her through the steps needed to prove this theorem, with diagrams