And Inky, the teachers not knowing how to figure area was pretty horrifying to me, too! I'd really hope for better everywhere, no exceptions.
I looked up the original note (in Notices of the AMS 2005 Feb) that had this, because I found it so horrifying. Turns out that she was asking for the area of an x by y rectangle. Kids are supposed to have a "not ready for algebra" stage in which they find things harder when put in those terms than when given actual numbers, aren't they (though I can't say I ever observed such a stage with DS!)? So maybe that was really the issue for these teachers. But even so...
