I love teaching 8th grade!

So, as I sit in front of my TV, correcting papers before the start of World Series game 3, I come to the point on a child's paper where said student must identify the absolute value of certain numbers. Now recall if you will that the absolute value of a number is the distance that number is from zero on the number line, always expressed in a positive value. In other words, the absolute value of a number is the numerical value of a real number without regard to its sign. For example, the absolute value of −4 (written "abs -4") is 4.

One of my cherubs answered this question:

abs -144 =

with the number -231.

I'm going to assume this student...

1. forgot to do his/her homework, and did it quickly in homeroom
2. too a wild guess
3. has no idea of what absolute value is (meaning either I didn't get through to this student or he/she didn't bother to try to grasp the concept)
4. all of the above.

While I know this child to be a problem child with a few challenges, math wasn't supposed to be one of them.

I wonder...what can I do to save this poor lost mathematical soul? Two hundred thirty-one? Wow...