Or he could just count the circles in the first place???? Why is he bothering with this other thing. 

A piece of paper appears on Xue Yang's desk with ten questions with associated ten frames and blocks. 

Xue Yang is going to... count them? He guesses? This is very boring. He hopes class is done soon. 

When he's put the homework in the homework hole, the voice starts again.

"Let's think about what seven plus six is. Think about the answer on your own."

Wait! They didn't give him any things to count! How is he supposed to do this problem without things to count! He could use his fingers but he only has nine of them!

He gets most of the way through counting it on his toes when the video starts back up. 

"We could do this as seven objects plus six more objects, and then think about how many total objects we have. For example, we could think about seven tomatoes." Seven tomatoes appear on the screen. "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. And six blueberries. One, two, three, four, five, six. We care about the total number of food items."

Right! There they go. Why didn't they give him objects to count before?

"How many total pieces of food do I have now? I start with seven, and now I have eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen."

He KNOWS how to COUNT, you stupid voice. 

"I have a total of thirteen pieces of food. What are other ways we could have thought about this? We could have done it on a number line." A number line appears. "I can start at seven and move six more up the number line. One, two, three, four, five, six. Seven plus six is starting at seven and making six jumps up the number line. We get to thirteen. Another way to think about it is that we started at seven, we added three to get to ten, and so we have to add another three, which gets to thirteen. That goes to the heart of what the number thirteen represents. Thirteen has a one as its first digit, in the tens place, so it literally represents one ten, and a three as its second digit, in the units place, so it literally represents three ones."

Whatever.

"Look at the food again. That's one group of ten. We had to add three more to get a group of ten, and then we had three more. So when you add seven plus six, you fill one whole group of ten, and then you have three ones left over. Seven plus six is the same as ten plus three, which is thirteen. One ten is ten, plus three ones. Thirteen."

No, those are clearly totally different. Seven plus six is seven plus six! Ten plus three is ten plus three! Those are different problems. You can't say they're the same just because they get the same answer. What shit are you trying to pull, disembodied voice guy. 

"Let's think about what eight plus seven is equal to. Eight plus seven is like taking eight tomatoes and seven blueberries and seeing how many items of food you have. Think about your answer."

Xue Yang, who has caught on to trends here, patiently waits for pictures he can count to appear.

"Let's think about it. I'm going to keep adding blueberries until I get to my total of ten food items, and then I'm going to keep going until I've added a total of seven. One tomato, two tomatoes, three tomatoes, four tomatoes, five tomatoes, six tomatoes, seven tomatoes, eight tomatoes. Now to these eight tomatoes I'm going to add seven blueberries. So that's going to be one blueberry, two blueberries. And I'm going to pause there because I finished a group of ten. But I've only added two blueberries. I have more blueberries to add. I have made a group of ten pieces of fruit. I have one group of ten. So this is a two-digit number where the digit on the left is a one. But I'm not done adding blueberries! I've only added two blueberries. So let me add more. Three blueberries, four blueberries, five blueberries, six blueberries, seven blueberries. I have a group of ten, but above and beyond filling out that group of ten, which is represented here because this is going to be a two-digit number. This left digit is in the tens place, so it literally means one group of ten, which is right over there. How many more do I have? I have another five ones. So we have one ten and we have five ones. So what is eight plus seven? It is fifteen. The one in fifteen represents one ten and the five represents five ones. One ten is ten, and five ones is one. So fifteen is ten plus five. So eight plus seven is fifteen."

WHAT do all the TENS have to do with ANYTHING. 

Another homework appears on his desk. It has a bunch of problems that involve adding single-digit numbers. It also has no pictures.

Wait! Where are the things he's supposed to count? How is he supposed to do the math without things to count?

He explodes his paper.

Another paper appears on his desk with a different set of addition problems. 

WELL HE IS GOING TO EXPLODE IT AGAIN

Every time he explodes the paper, it is replaced with another piece of paper. 

FINE. You win, annoying disembodied voice. 

He takes off his shoes so his toes are readily available for counting and starts to work on the adding problems. 

See. He can do these problems. He doesn't need any nonsense about five plus ten being the same as seven plus eight even though it CLEARLY IS NOT. All he needs are his toes. 

The last problem is ten plus ten. 

WHAT. WHY ARE YOU ASSUMING HE HAS ALL OF HIS FINGERS. THIS IS STUPID.

He explodes the homework.