horrible story from my younger years, I think we were about 14 or 15 at that time.
There was a girl in our cooking class, who did not understand numbers.
Her:"What does this mean? there's a one, and then another one, a slash, and a four?"
in case that description eludes you, the textbook said: 1 1/4 cups of something.
Me:"uhh.. one and one quarter?"
Her:"Quarter?"
Me:"Like.. one fourth. One fourth of a cup. Quarter is one fourth."
Her: "How do I get one fourth?"
Me:"You.. it's... one fourth! I can't make this any simpler for you! Take one whole cup okay? Then divide it into four equal segments, then take one of those segments. That's one fourth."
Her:"I don't get it. Show me."
Me:"Okay like... just pour half.. HALF.. then take HALF away from that, you've got a quarter. a half of a half."
She somehow managed to not understand that, and I eventually just did it for her. I tried showing her, with a cup, and water, how I pour half away from a full cup, then explaining how it's the water is now divided by two. Then pouring half away from what I had left, and explaining how I now had one fourth left, which was a big fucking waste of time.
When we finally had finished cooking, it was time to eat it. It tasted absolutely gruesome. I looked up the recipe, and realized that there was indeed, another fraction..
Me:"How much salt did you put in?"
Her: "Three units.."
Me:"Why?"
Her:"it says three out of four units of salt"
Cooking Book: "3/4"