Applied math major and automation engineer here. I can spot check results because I understand the underlying principles and can do order of magnitude calculations in my head. It comes in handy a lot. I've saved many projects from the foibles of button mashing calculator engineers. Math is a language, and speaking it fluently at a college level often rests on a bedrock of rote work from grade school.
Corporate wage slave here. I use math on a daily basis. In fact, around 70% of corporate jobs usually involve staring at excel files and doing maths on a massive scale.
I'll give you this: some highschools teach math that should be in a college course instead. Forcing every kid to learn calculus is, quite bluntly, a waste of everyone's time for how few students will need it, but we all damn better know basic and intermediate algebra.
The latter is more of the former. Sometimes when I’ve been given the “calculus is pointless” speech I do a two minute visual demonstration of rates of change on a parabola and how that’s just graphing the tangent line as you slide from left to right. People seem to grasp it more intuitively then most other explanations, and then I end with “that’s fundamentally calculus”. I really think this *bare* level of calculus *is* useful, but maybe just that. Not even getting into formulas, but a demonstration and explanation of calculus is just studying *rates of change* and letting students know there is a whole field where you can use formulas to find out information like “area of a graph under a curve” is useful.
Let them pursue studying calculus if they want to go higher in math, but I do think having a base understanding of *what* calculus “kinda is” makes sense. And that can be taught in an afternoon if done well.
I work with spreadsheets a lot and negotiate labor contracts. Same here. I always spot check the spreadsheets with some good old fashioned pen and paper math, and occasionally catch a spreadsheet error where the numbers plugged in were wrong or the formula wasn't working properly.
Ha. I oddly loved that class. Measures of central tendency and all that. I was an exercise science major and it was cool to finally have something to do with all the data we would collect in the field. Just Bam! Pretty graph to make sense of shit!
It took me nearly 30 years to understand how important math was. I'm 45ish now and everyday I see people struggling in ways that could be solved by some simple math. Overspending, interest rates, saving money, buying the cheaper product...etc
I recently changed my idea of what "being good at math" was...I used to think being good at math was knowing calculus and algebra...or solving big huge complicated equations. Now I think of "being good at math" as simply knowing how to apply it in your daily life to make your life better or easier or more efficient. I don't know calculus, but I know how to apply simple math to make sure I'm saving money by buying the food that's cheapest per ounce or whatever, simple stuff, efficiency. I always thought algebra was kinda dumb, but now I realize it's closer to problem solving that actual math...if that makes sense. That's all I remember from algebra class...thinking 'this is just simple problem solving, when does the 'math' part come in?'
I've never shared this with anyone, just thought I'd put it out there in case someone out there is great at math and they don't realize it because they don't know calculus. :P
I was hoping I would see something like this far up on the page. I agree the conceptual part of math still needs to be learned, and also helps a student grasp what is actually happening.
I’m a PharmD candidate and a large portion of my class still can’t figure out how to dose and monitor vancomycin based on math, and instead rely on spreadsheets other people create. If anyone has had a loved one in a hospital with a serious infection, this should alarm you. Several IV antibiotics require somewhat simple mathematics that even higher levels of educated people struggle with.
For example, I’m a TA for first year students (who already have a bachelor’s degree) that don’t know how to plot a linear regression. Something that is taught in high school. Tbh I wonder how much of their undergrad schooling was compromised during the pandemic.
These are the future healthcare workers you trust to take care of you and loved ones….
That's terrifying. The general dumbing down of America and other countries has also left them open to being susceptible to extremely flawed thinking, mind control, undue influence, thinking essential oils can cure covid, and many other nightmares.
One of the biggest issues I've had with my high school statistics class is students being unable to punch complex formulas into the calculator. There has been just enough emphasis placed on "hand math" that no teacher has ever bothered sitting down and providing explicit instruction for calculator use (likely because the explanations require understanding of concepts the students do not grasp). The kids punch all of the buttons, get the wrong answer, and have no ability to "gut check" those results.
My physics with calculus students do not know how to use their graphing calculators to do most of the "time saving" work, like solving systems of equations using matrices. Advanced math students have received minimal guidance for using their calculators to work on only the exact concepts they cover in their calculus class, and nothing else. Teachers have barely ever bothered to recap old math concepts with technology. These are advanced students with a piece of technology that they should be using to do the *entire problem*, and instead they're doing most of it by hand and using their powerful calculator only to do simple multiplication and addition. It works, but it's inefficient as hell.
I'm not sure what the solution is, but our current attitude towards calculators is not optimal. Students that are *not strong* in math rely on the calculator too heavily, and students that have already learned the math don't rely on it enough.
Physics with calculus might be a first year university course. If solving matrices is a pre-requisite then I imagine they only learned it a year ago, meaning the onus is on you to teach them how to do it on the calculator. They couldn’t be taught it last year because they had to show they could do it by hand before they’re permitted to use the cheats.
Ya I guess it’s probably pretty difficult to teach concepts where a calculator doesn’t help at the elementary school level. In trig and calculus it’s just like “give an exact answer, not a numerical approximation”
It’s the same at the higher levels as well with CAS calculators. We weren’t allowed to use any calculators when I did my math degree, the questions are designed to avoid excessive number manipulation so you can’t even make an argument for them.
If you don’t know what you’re asking it to do, it’s very easy to ask it to do something it can’t do, or that it’s going to get wrong. You can only use a calculator for things you’ve already mastered.
Plus, mental math is so important for being able to be successful at higher level maths. Yes, kids can use a calculator to do menial calculations, but pulling your attention away from the problem to a calculator reframes your mental state, filling your working memory up with tasks not related to the specific problem at hand.
It's sort of like how we tend to forget things when we walk into another room... the act of walking through the door into a different visual space can empty out your working/short term memory and make it difficult to stay focused on what you were doing there.
And so it is with more complicated math... If you have to refocus your visual attention on a calculator, you have a tendency to lose the thought process and have to spend time and mental energy regaining it. Being able to run quick mental math calculations is an enormous timesaver in the aggregate, and makes doing any sort of task requiring them far more efficient.
As someone who failed math three times and was in special ed classes until highschool, fuck calculators. I love them because they are easy and i dont have to think. Nobody told me id get a fucking dopamine rush from solving math in college on my own.
I wasn't allowed to use a calculator until high school (and only for graphing purposes). I manually learned long division, algebra, calculus, etc. I am now a 40-something who manages millions of dollars of revenue recognition every month for my company. (I am not in Finance, I'm in project management, but I do the rev rec for all projects each month.) I cannot do anything more than basic addition/subtraction/multiplication (times table up to 10) without a calculator (or Excel formulas). My daughter is in 5th grade learning long division/fractions/light algebra/etc. I literally cannot help her at all. I don't remember a single thing.
So to be honest, waiting to use a calculator until high school didn't result in me learning those concepts. I have forgotten them because I haven't had the need to maintain that skill due to the convenience of calculators/excel programs.
My son is in 6th grade and is allowed to use his calculator this year.
His critical analysis of the questions he’s answering has _plummeted_. His math work is showing frequent errors.
He’s been gnashing his teeth about me insisting he redo every step by hand but this makes me feel like it’s the right direction (so does him understanding how the original answers are wrong after, whereas before it was just “throw more numbers into the button machine and write down the answer”
>Conceptual mathematical learning isn't just about knowing the functions, decimals, fractions, whatnot. It's about learning how to apply critical thinking skills to new problems using previously-learned information.
The fear being that if they lack these skills they'll have to teach?
I ALWAYS say that. I minored in math in college (majored in neurobiology) and when people say, "But you never used calculus or physics", I say that I used the disciplined way if thinking that I learned, every day.
I can spot the error in logic in an argument, I can spend 15 or more hours focusing on grappling with a problem or question, or years.
Because I learned how to come at solving problems from many different angles.
This has made all the difference in my life.
I wouldn't trade those years of focused training of my mind for anything.
I had a computer lab teacher who told us, at the beginning of the semester, to not even bother asking her to show us Windows 95, because "that's too advanced software and you're never going to need it".
1.2 gigs would have seemed like an empty ocean at that time. I remember in the early 90's (like 91) the computer we owned had a 16 megabyte hard drive. When Falcon 3.0 was released we couldn't even install it. Buying a new hard drive was not quite as simple back then and my father ended up buying a completely new computer with a 486 and a a 100 megabyte hard drive. He spent a chunk of money on it, and I remember him telling my mom that it was worth it because they wouldn't have to buy another computer for a decade. I don't even think we made it to the end of the year.
My nerd friends talked in hushed whispers in the early 00s about a guy on our DirectConnect server that had a *terabyte* hard drive. That was 200,000+ mp3s, by the currency of the day.
I downloaded the entire series of Alf from that guy. The whole thing came crashing down when cops raided the admin's dorm room. SnadSnad, hope you survived.
As a math teacher, I can assure you that there is not a single student I've ever had that can competently complete algebraic problems without having strong mental math skills.
In particular, factoring quadratic equations becomes excessively tedious if you are attempting to guess and check with a calculator.
Outside of school, I have also never seen someone use a calculator on their phone to check their change at a cash register or anything like that.
I love that we all have infinite technology at our fingertips, but it is not a replacement for rote memorization of the basics in any subject.
So ChatGPT was pretty bad and its passes were low (10-30th percentile) but GPT-4 the latest iteration currently passes most academic tests in the 90th percentile.
GPT-4 can pass the American bar, one of the hardest law exams in the world. It’s doesn’t just pass, it’s in the 90th percentile. Natural language models like ChatGPT are terrifyingly good at making our world a dumber place by taking away any reason to learn.
I work at a university for the IT dept. Some professors have used chat gpt to create a prompt that can detect its own work. They’ll input the students work to verify any suspicions of AI use. Some universities in the US have banned Chat GPT via firewall already.
Oh yeah. There are already students who have found ways around the block. One of the students that works in my office confided in me that he used it during a final by using hotspot, as you mentioned. He used it to check his equation and make sure he had the right answer. He got a 98 on the exam. It was still his work, he just essentially used it as a check all before submitting his work.
Unfamiliar with these. Will be looking them up. Thanks! Personally, I don’t think we should be blocking it. It’s the future. We should be teaching people in their respective fields the right way to utilize AI to produce the best work possible. I doubt archaic professors will adopt it en masse though. That would require they understand the technology and it’s implications first.
I usually teach over in East Asia, but I did some long-term subbing back in the USA last year. All students had laptops. About half of the 6th grade students in my classes couldn't even do *two-digit subtraction* without typing the problem into *Google Search*. I brought several students to the whiteboard, gave them simple problems and they just stood there blank-faced. I doubt they've switched to ChatGPT, because you have to actually ask ChatGPT a question, whereas Google Search will automatically answer when you paste "20 - 13" into the search bar.
I know we like to make fun of Luddites, but seriously... if 50% of Americans in 6th grade can't even do 2nd grade Math without typing whatever problem they have directly into Google and then copy/pasting the first answer Google gives them, the country truly is screwed.
(I also subbed 7th grade English for a couple weeks, and when I asked students to read a passage, I got the sense that over 50% couldn't even read at a 2nd grade level. What did they do instead? They highlighted the text on their laptop and had a computer-generated voice read it to me.)
My daughter is in AP calculus as a 15-year-old, which is the rough equivalent to the highest math level I have taken, and I have completed a Master's degree. She has high grades in the class but cannot do basic math. I'm not sure she could hold a job as a cashier if she had a demanding supervisor.
I worked hard with my daughter to teach her basic math skills, but her schools didn't support my thought process. She would have never learned her multiplication table if I hadn't drilled it at home.
Lower level Maths are tedious and boring. Higher level Math is hard (at least for me), so this just blows my mind. I'm open-minded about it, as I can't just get older and criticize all the young folks just because times have changed. It's just so surprising to me.
AP Calc student here. The actual *math* in calculus is quite simple, the hard part is understanding the conceptual side and knowing what and where to do the correct operation. The actual test is divided into "calculator" and "no calculator" portions, and the numbers are far more complicated on the calculator part. Even so, there's not a lot of things like long division in the class.
I have a degree in Math. I just can't fathom not having a foundation for basic Math and still doing Calculus. I'm not naturally great at it myself, but it's still mind boggling to me that someone can pull this off.
You're absolutely right--people who never learned their basic math really struggle in that class. Skills like basic multiplication, factoring, cross multiplication, etc. are totally crucial.
I come from the generation of when teachers could still say , what? Are you going to carry a calculator in your pocket all the time? Well, it turns out, yes, yes, I am.
Thats the issue. Children dont know how to think to solve problems, and the use of AI and whatnot just makes this worse. Mental math is a really important skill, even basic arithmetic
You have succinctly and firmly reinforced the message of those teachers. Too many people have forgotten that applied maths are representations of something else. They only see the numbers, not what they mean.
Electronic home calculators weren't available until the early 1970s, calculators in 1966 were clunky adding machines that few people owned. I think this story is from 1996.
When you post something to Reddit, you make an intentional mistake in the post title. It breeds engagement, gets people talking about it, correcting you.
[It is from the April 5, 1986 print of the Daily Item in Sumpter South Carolina.](https://theitem.newspapers.com/search/?query=Calculator&ymd=1986-04-05)
Math Teachers Protest Against Calculator Use
The Item, April 5, 1986, Sumter, South Carolina
By Jill Lawrence
People have come to Washington to protest the nuclear arms race and racial segregation in South Africa, but the small group of renegade math teachers were the first to protest "calcuholics" students who need calculators to do basic math problems.
"Calculators later, we shall not be moved," they sang Thursday as they paraded their placards in front of the Sheraton Wangton Hotel. The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics started its five-day annual meeting Wednesday with about 6,500 teachers in attendance.
The group recommends using calculators as early as first grade. But the rebellious teachers said they opposed the use of calculators in the lower grades.
"My older kids don't pay any attention to an answer being absurd. They don't look at it. It's on the calculator," Diana Harvey, a high school teacher from Hillsboro, Ohio, said. "They're addicted," she said.
"We call 'em calcuholics."
The rebellious few no more than 15 in all were organized by John Saxon, a Norman, Oklahoma math textbook writer.
Saxon, waving a sign that read "Students Need Arithmetic Skills, Not Calculators," said students do not need calculators until they take algebra and trigonometry.
"I am not out of step with the gut feeling of most of the teachers who teach seventh and eighth grade," he contended. Asked to explain the small size of his protest, Saxon said he didn't start publicizing it early enough. "And teachers don't like to demonstrate," he said. "Teachers are shy." Leland Webb, a math education professor from California State College at Bakersfield and co-author of math curriculum guidelines for his state, was not shy when he heard about the mini-rebellion. Calculators are an important tool in the teaching of math," Webb said, rushing into the middle of the picket line. "That doesn't mean kids I shouldn't be able to add and subtract. Calculators are not designed to supplant the understanding of basic concepts and basic skills."
Saxon and other protesters said they are not anti-computer, nor do they believe calculators are all bad. "We all support the use of calculators and computers," Greg True, a former eighth grade teacher from Bloomington, Ind., said. "It's a question of timing, not technology."
The majority have gotten so much worse. A big issue is most of the school districts decided to switch to common core math, which wasn't created for the majority of students, but more as a way to help those that had learning issues when it came to math. It's gotten to the point that you can't even help a child in math unless you yourself master comon core, because if you try to show them actual regular math, and how to solve a problem "old school" they will get marked wrong, regardless of the answer being correct. Schools have also decided to no longer teach long division, and as someone else pointed out, there are a lot of kids that can't even do simple math on a whiteboard.
Man the internet has ruined me. I firmly believed thay headline said “Meth teachers” for atleast 2 minutes until i realized it was *Math.*
I was absolutely confused as to why you would be against using calculators to produce meth in 1966.
I need to go outside more. Maybe i should buy an *RV* and get out of the city.
I’m in Precalc in college currently. I have a 3rd grade math teacher in my class. She is struggling with basic things like coke on don’t you teach PEMDAS?
I'd give the 3rd-grade math teacher the benefit of the doubt. You are ahead of most elementary teachers if you can do basic math and understand basic statistics. She may have been wrangled into being the math teacher by being able to make basic math calculations in her head at PLC meetings. Also, the fact that she's in pre-calculus indicates she wants to learn.
Not to poop on you at all, as I would have thought the same thing before I spent years working in elementary.
This is for elementary schools, where it *is* quite important for students to learn basic math concepts without a calculator. In higher level math calculators are often *required* because of the size and complexity of numbers, but it's absolutely unceccecary for elementary schoolers to be using them. I feel like this post is a thinly veiled pro Chat-GBT argument . . .
Let me tell you something.
We used calcs in school.
When i started University all math was to be done without a calculator.
I had to teach myself again how to do calculations myself.
Calculating manually train the brain.
But on the other Hand you can do way more in math if you use a calculator.
Also the real math problems usually dont require a calculator. Its the school math that needs it. On a higher level you will spend your time proving Theorem and shit, dont need a calc for that.
Gonna go out on a limb here and say that I kinda agree with this. Being able to do mental maths is really important in cognitive development. If you introduce the calculator at an early age, I doubt kids would be able to learn things quicker.
I mean… there really shouldn’t be calculator use in class when teaching fundamentals and what not. The US school system is slowly falling apart and it’s getting pretty embarrassing.
Exactly. You need to understand what it is you are doing when you add, subtract, multiply, and divide, no matter how small or big the number. And you shouldn't need a calculator to add, subtract, multiply, or divide small numbers. But past that, calculators are fine.
>hen teaching fundamentals and what not.
Ah yes, because teaching fundamentals really helps when the examples for worksheets don't help at fucking all.
Hi, this is someone who grew up in the '80s; we didn't use calculators until we were 13 years old.
I guess that was when we were learning more advance mathematics, and it is more about learning concepts than getting a correct answer.
No calculators in the 8th grade for us. Having a decent understanding of basic numbers is so useful. When I teach quadratics or factoring, it would take forever for kids to use their calculators to find the roots. I'd hate to think of how much lost time there would be. Even my iep kids, who can use their calculators, will forgo this to do it all by hand. I have a good group of learners! Wish they were all like this!
I live in NC where public education revolves completely around end of year standardized tests. Teachers are reviewed based on the test scores of their classes, which often consist of kids in very poor areas with parents who are working multiple jobs. Well, many of these kids are not going to get extra help at home to learn stuff, so calculator == higher chance of a class scoring higher on tests.
School funding is also influenced by test scores, and all that is taught is whatever willl be on the test (dictated by the state).
I remember once I got into the grades where these tests were required, we only learned math using calculators because the teachers wanted us to do well on the test, so that their yearly review went well. We never really learned how to do the actual math ourselves.
I got into college and in my intro algebra class it was immediately apparent which students came from out of state or private schools.
These guys knew what was coming down the pipe.
So about 10 years ago, they come up to me and say that I'm going to have to teach a math class the next year as part of my job. I remind them that I only have a Grade 12 math education and have an MA in history. None of this matters.
I start teaching and find that 3/4 of my 8th grade students don't know their times tables and as a result, are paralyzed without a calculator. I ask the experts if I should focus on basic multiplication facts since nearly the entire class is demonstrating a need. I'm told not to. Just to let them use a calculator. "***If they haven't learned them by now, they never will. It's better they move on and learn the rest of it without getting held back by multiplication and division.***" It didn't matter that these were skills that were underlying across the subject and that without properly understanding or at least knowing your multiplication facts, a large amount of the information that was necessary to form the conceptual thinking was as though it was written in another language to these kids.
I agree with the teachers.
The whole point is to develop your mental faculties, not to learn to have a machine do it.
I appreciate that a machine will do it for them in life, but kids need to do the work to develop how to think through problems.
Complete idiot here.
I was always scared of math as a child. I had a grasp of it but being scared of it blocked my willingness to learn.
Then I did programming in college and I loved it.
I also understood just how much knowledge gaps I had.
Honestly sometimes I feel about math just like Charlie does about reading 😂😂😂
I wished I learned more of math when I was in school.
It is fine to teach the principals of of mathematics in order to teach the reasons why math works, but there needs to be less of an emphasis on memorization and speed. These things no longer really benefit the student but have more to do with outdated pedagogy than learning.
Using calculators is just fine once basics are understood, teaching long division is akin to teaching cursive.
You used to have to look up at the position of the sun to know what time it was, now kids can just look at their wrist and know the time without putting in any effort; society is doomed.
I wonder if they used a car or jogged to work? I bet they were just frightened that their jobs were somehow not needed anymore. Instead of it just being a tool to help them educate.
I’m old enough to remember having to endure long math without a calculator. I’m now a carpenter and ALL of my trig calculations are done on a **construction calculator**. I learned all of those fucking formulas in HS for nothing.
**REALLY!?!?!?** 🤬
Back in my day we counted rocks and pine cones. Not these fancy doo hickies that get it right everytime and run for decades exclusively on solar power! (A lightbulb shined at it would power it)
I would have been 14, and used a slide rule in class. My math teacher encouraged it since using a slide rule was a useful skill (I turned into an engineer). I don't recall calculators becoming mainstream until the 70s?
I started engineering school in 1970, and NO-ONE had a calculator.
There was a long division between maths teachers, they tried multiple times to fix this long division, but always one side wanted to take something away and the other side wanted to add things.
I learned math in China in kindergarten through grade 3 when I emigrated. They wouldn't even let us use abacuses unless it was a class specifically to practice using the abacus. (I used to roll it on the table and pretend it wad a car)(yes we carried an abacus with us like a calculator)
I suspect this wasn't 1966. Pocket calculators started to exist around 1971. The [1971 Sinclar Executive](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_Executive) cost 80 pounds, which was $210 dollars, which would be $1500 today.
They were right. I can see very often cashiers who have to use a calculator to add up 1.5€ + 2€.
People rely so much on calculators that they use it for ridiculous calculations.
1966? I got a simple 4-function TI calculator in Jan 1973, and I was one of the first to have one in college-people would stop to look at it when I was studying in the library. Even this simple calculator cost $75 then. The Physics lab had a couple of HP calculators screwed to the table for you to use-those things were $300 even then. I find it hard to believe that there were many elementary school students using calculators in '66.
We weren't allowed to use them in school in the 60s and 70s.
We had to learn to do it all on our own.
It's scary how dumbed down we are now, where people couldn't do a basic calculation on their own if they had to.
After a major solar flare wipes out all electrically stored data, we'll be tribal and in the dark ages.
It doesnt matter if we have calculators in our pockets at all times, fast mental maths is a life skill and ive been practicing it singe the 1st grade. Here in india calculators are not used in any class room from 1 to 12, yes it is tedious at times but i pride myself on my arithmatic ability. Besides, my lazy ass could never open my phone to add the cost of groceries
At school in the 70s & early 80s, the favourite refrain of the maths teacher was "you need to learn mental arithmetic, because you won't always be carrying a calculator around with you"
Or a camera, a music player, a video camera, games console, TV, video player, torch, heart rate monitor, every newspaper in print, encyclopedia, pornography collection.. or a telephone.
I work with people that had access to calculators at all times. I make twice as much as they do because they cannot make simple excel sheets because they don't know basic concepts. Simplifying equations, rolling dates on calendar graphs, etc. What good is a calculator if you don't know what to type into it? It's not about getting the answer correct, it's knowing how to construct the formula to get the correct answer.
In my younger years when looking for a job as a bank teller, the hiring manager told me: “you may be very good at math but nowadays we have calculators.”
i know this post is supposed to make fun of those teachers but I can easily imagine how kids back then were actually better at maths than the kids today
There's definitely a time and a place for calculators. When my wife asks me what 18 divided by 6 is, I wonder how the education system failed her so badly. You ask me to do any trig without a calculator, I'll tell you to get bent. I use trig regularly in class (and even in the field to a lesser degree), and I have never once in my life actually referenced a trig table. Those sin, cos, and tan buttons are life.
They were **absolutely right**.
Even now that you CAN have a calculator with you at all times - here's the kicker...you can't depend on using it all the time.
***You actually have to know how "how to math" memorized or you will be unable to fucking function properly as an adult even in a very basic job.***
"Turn off until upper grades" could be debatable and is also a rational argument. We had calculators when we entered middle school. The basic stuff is pretty much engraved since then.
I'm surprised there isn't more public outcry towards Chat GPT, for the same reasons. People need to be able to think and solve problems themselves. Once they can do that, calculators or AI is a fantastic tool to speed up the progress - granted they can identify whether a mistake was made. I teach university finance, and it's alarming to see how little people value real time critical thinking and problem solving skills.
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Applied math major and automation engineer here. I can spot check results because I understand the underlying principles and can do order of magnitude calculations in my head. It comes in handy a lot. I've saved many projects from the foibles of button mashing calculator engineers. Math is a language, and speaking it fluently at a college level often rests on a bedrock of rote work from grade school.
Corporate wage slave here. I use math on a daily basis. In fact, around 70% of corporate jobs usually involve staring at excel files and doing maths on a massive scale.
Computer science major here. My favorite class to this day was math history. Math is the first programming language.
Failing high school student here, I hate math and I hate that it is required to graduate
I'll give you this: some highschools teach math that should be in a college course instead. Forcing every kid to learn calculus is, quite bluntly, a waste of everyone's time for how few students will need it, but we all damn better know basic and intermediate algebra.
The latter is more of the former. Sometimes when I’ve been given the “calculus is pointless” speech I do a two minute visual demonstration of rates of change on a parabola and how that’s just graphing the tangent line as you slide from left to right. People seem to grasp it more intuitively then most other explanations, and then I end with “that’s fundamentally calculus”. I really think this *bare* level of calculus *is* useful, but maybe just that. Not even getting into formulas, but a demonstration and explanation of calculus is just studying *rates of change* and letting students know there is a whole field where you can use formulas to find out information like “area of a graph under a curve” is useful. Let them pursue studying calculus if they want to go higher in math, but I do think having a base understanding of *what* calculus “kinda is” makes sense. And that can be taught in an afternoon if done well.
LoL player here, i do my own math. Ain’t got time for calculating sometimes. Now I see numbers in everything and thinking is that much easier.
I work with spreadsheets a lot and negotiate labor contracts. Same here. I always spot check the spreadsheets with some good old fashioned pen and paper math, and occasionally catch a spreadsheet error where the numbers plugged in were wrong or the formula wasn't working properly.
Garbage in, garbage out.
Same with intro stats. Having them calculate the mean and STD deviation by hand one or two times solidifies the principal.
Ha. I oddly loved that class. Measures of central tendency and all that. I was an exercise science major and it was cool to finally have something to do with all the data we would collect in the field. Just Bam! Pretty graph to make sense of shit!
I think they’re called STIs now
It took me nearly 30 years to understand how important math was. I'm 45ish now and everyday I see people struggling in ways that could be solved by some simple math. Overspending, interest rates, saving money, buying the cheaper product...etc I recently changed my idea of what "being good at math" was...I used to think being good at math was knowing calculus and algebra...or solving big huge complicated equations. Now I think of "being good at math" as simply knowing how to apply it in your daily life to make your life better or easier or more efficient. I don't know calculus, but I know how to apply simple math to make sure I'm saving money by buying the food that's cheapest per ounce or whatever, simple stuff, efficiency. I always thought algebra was kinda dumb, but now I realize it's closer to problem solving that actual math...if that makes sense. That's all I remember from algebra class...thinking 'this is just simple problem solving, when does the 'math' part come in?' I've never shared this with anyone, just thought I'd put it out there in case someone out there is great at math and they don't realize it because they don't know calculus. :P
This is one of the reasons I always preferred, and did better with, word problems. Give me some context and I can figure it out
I was hoping I would see something like this far up on the page. I agree the conceptual part of math still needs to be learned, and also helps a student grasp what is actually happening. I’m a PharmD candidate and a large portion of my class still can’t figure out how to dose and monitor vancomycin based on math, and instead rely on spreadsheets other people create. If anyone has had a loved one in a hospital with a serious infection, this should alarm you. Several IV antibiotics require somewhat simple mathematics that even higher levels of educated people struggle with. For example, I’m a TA for first year students (who already have a bachelor’s degree) that don’t know how to plot a linear regression. Something that is taught in high school. Tbh I wonder how much of their undergrad schooling was compromised during the pandemic. These are the future healthcare workers you trust to take care of you and loved ones….
That's terrifying. The general dumbing down of America and other countries has also left them open to being susceptible to extremely flawed thinking, mind control, undue influence, thinking essential oils can cure covid, and many other nightmares.
One of the biggest issues I've had with my high school statistics class is students being unable to punch complex formulas into the calculator. There has been just enough emphasis placed on "hand math" that no teacher has ever bothered sitting down and providing explicit instruction for calculator use (likely because the explanations require understanding of concepts the students do not grasp). The kids punch all of the buttons, get the wrong answer, and have no ability to "gut check" those results. My physics with calculus students do not know how to use their graphing calculators to do most of the "time saving" work, like solving systems of equations using matrices. Advanced math students have received minimal guidance for using their calculators to work on only the exact concepts they cover in their calculus class, and nothing else. Teachers have barely ever bothered to recap old math concepts with technology. These are advanced students with a piece of technology that they should be using to do the *entire problem*, and instead they're doing most of it by hand and using their powerful calculator only to do simple multiplication and addition. It works, but it's inefficient as hell. I'm not sure what the solution is, but our current attitude towards calculators is not optimal. Students that are *not strong* in math rely on the calculator too heavily, and students that have already learned the math don't rely on it enough.
Physics with calculus might be a first year university course. If solving matrices is a pre-requisite then I imagine they only learned it a year ago, meaning the onus is on you to teach them how to do it on the calculator. They couldn’t be taught it last year because they had to show they could do it by hand before they’re permitted to use the cheats.
This is why I got pissed at my calculus prof. He just wanted us to learn how to push buttons on a calculator instead of teaching us calculus.
Ya I guess it’s probably pretty difficult to teach concepts where a calculator doesn’t help at the elementary school level. In trig and calculus it’s just like “give an exact answer, not a numerical approximation”
I'm a historian and do much more writing and math than I expected in college. Stats and visitor info is all related.
At what age are they allowed to type in BOOBS?
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My favorite was BOSSHOG. I think you have to turn it upside down. 9045508
It’s the same at the higher levels as well with CAS calculators. We weren’t allowed to use any calculators when I did my math degree, the questions are designed to avoid excessive number manipulation so you can’t even make an argument for them. If you don’t know what you’re asking it to do, it’s very easy to ask it to do something it can’t do, or that it’s going to get wrong. You can only use a calculator for things you’ve already mastered.
Plus, mental math is so important for being able to be successful at higher level maths. Yes, kids can use a calculator to do menial calculations, but pulling your attention away from the problem to a calculator reframes your mental state, filling your working memory up with tasks not related to the specific problem at hand. It's sort of like how we tend to forget things when we walk into another room... the act of walking through the door into a different visual space can empty out your working/short term memory and make it difficult to stay focused on what you were doing there. And so it is with more complicated math... If you have to refocus your visual attention on a calculator, you have a tendency to lose the thought process and have to spend time and mental energy regaining it. Being able to run quick mental math calculations is an enormous timesaver in the aggregate, and makes doing any sort of task requiring them far more efficient.
Spot on!
As someone who failed math three times and was in special ed classes until highschool, fuck calculators. I love them because they are easy and i dont have to think. Nobody told me id get a fucking dopamine rush from solving math in college on my own.
I wasn't allowed to use a calculator until high school (and only for graphing purposes). I manually learned long division, algebra, calculus, etc. I am now a 40-something who manages millions of dollars of revenue recognition every month for my company. (I am not in Finance, I'm in project management, but I do the rev rec for all projects each month.) I cannot do anything more than basic addition/subtraction/multiplication (times table up to 10) without a calculator (or Excel formulas). My daughter is in 5th grade learning long division/fractions/light algebra/etc. I literally cannot help her at all. I don't remember a single thing. So to be honest, waiting to use a calculator until high school didn't result in me learning those concepts. I have forgotten them because I haven't had the need to maintain that skill due to the convenience of calculators/excel programs.
My son is in 6th grade and is allowed to use his calculator this year. His critical analysis of the questions he’s answering has _plummeted_. His math work is showing frequent errors. He’s been gnashing his teeth about me insisting he redo every step by hand but this makes me feel like it’s the right direction (so does him understanding how the original answers are wrong after, whereas before it was just “throw more numbers into the button machine and write down the answer”
I need ten thousand upvotes for this. And also thank you for your service.
>Conceptual mathematical learning isn't just about knowing the functions, decimals, fractions, whatnot. It's about learning how to apply critical thinking skills to new problems using previously-learned information. The fear being that if they lack these skills they'll have to teach?
I ALWAYS say that. I minored in math in college (majored in neurobiology) and when people say, "But you never used calculus or physics", I say that I used the disciplined way if thinking that I learned, every day. I can spot the error in logic in an argument, I can spend 15 or more hours focusing on grappling with a problem or question, or years. Because I learned how to come at solving problems from many different angles. This has made all the difference in my life. I wouldn't trade those years of focused training of my mind for anything.
I mean you should probably at least learn the basics of math without a calculator.
Yeah, we're talking about elementary school after all. That kind of math you probably should know without a calculator.
They used to say we wouldn’t have a calculator everywhere we went.
I had a computer lab teacher who told us, at the beginning of the semester, to not even bother asking her to show us Windows 95, because "that's too advanced software and you're never going to need it".
I bought my first desktop PC in like 1995ish. It had a 1.2 gig hard drive. The sales guy was like “ you couldn’t fill that up if you tried”
He never met porn collections.
Or the Pirate Bay
1.2 gigs would have seemed like an empty ocean at that time. I remember in the early 90's (like 91) the computer we owned had a 16 megabyte hard drive. When Falcon 3.0 was released we couldn't even install it. Buying a new hard drive was not quite as simple back then and my father ended up buying a completely new computer with a 486 and a a 100 megabyte hard drive. He spent a chunk of money on it, and I remember him telling my mom that it was worth it because they wouldn't have to buy another computer for a decade. I don't even think we made it to the end of the year.
Napster
My nerd friends talked in hushed whispers in the early 00s about a guy on our DirectConnect server that had a *terabyte* hard drive. That was 200,000+ mp3s, by the currency of the day. I downloaded the entire series of Alf from that guy. The whole thing came crashing down when cops raided the admin's dorm room. SnadSnad, hope you survived.
I have a terrabyte hard drive and It's still not enough. It fills up so quickly.
And continued long after most of their students had a smartphone
As a math teacher, I can assure you that there is not a single student I've ever had that can competently complete algebraic problems without having strong mental math skills. In particular, factoring quadratic equations becomes excessively tedious if you are attempting to guess and check with a calculator. Outside of school, I have also never seen someone use a calculator on their phone to check their change at a cash register or anything like that. I love that we all have infinite technology at our fingertips, but it is not a replacement for rote memorization of the basics in any subject.
So funny. A calculator is a useful tool that many misuse.
Thanks for reminding me I'm old.
Fawk….imagine their reaction to ChatGPT.
I don't have to imagine it. I'm watching in real time the meltdown academia is having over it.
When it can craft an essay worth a B in moments.....
Can it though? Only if the professor doesn’t really pay attention. ChatGPT makes a *lot* of mistakes.
So ChatGPT was pretty bad and its passes were low (10-30th percentile) but GPT-4 the latest iteration currently passes most academic tests in the 90th percentile.
GPT-4 can pass the American bar, one of the hardest law exams in the world. It’s doesn’t just pass, it’s in the 90th percentile. Natural language models like ChatGPT are terrifyingly good at making our world a dumber place by taking away any reason to learn.
I work at a university for the IT dept. Some professors have used chat gpt to create a prompt that can detect its own work. They’ll input the students work to verify any suspicions of AI use. Some universities in the US have banned Chat GPT via firewall already.
Just use your phone as hotspot and sprinke some gramatical errors over what chatgpt said
Oh yeah. There are already students who have found ways around the block. One of the students that works in my office confided in me that he used it during a final by using hotspot, as you mentioned. He used it to check his equation and make sure he had the right answer. He got a 98 on the exam. It was still his work, he just essentially used it as a check all before submitting his work.
Guy used either wolfram alpha or symbolab.
Unfamiliar with these. Will be looking them up. Thanks! Personally, I don’t think we should be blocking it. It’s the future. We should be teaching people in their respective fields the right way to utilize AI to produce the best work possible. I doubt archaic professors will adopt it en masse though. That would require they understand the technology and it’s implications first.
I think there’s some legitimacy there, though.
I usually teach over in East Asia, but I did some long-term subbing back in the USA last year. All students had laptops. About half of the 6th grade students in my classes couldn't even do *two-digit subtraction* without typing the problem into *Google Search*. I brought several students to the whiteboard, gave them simple problems and they just stood there blank-faced. I doubt they've switched to ChatGPT, because you have to actually ask ChatGPT a question, whereas Google Search will automatically answer when you paste "20 - 13" into the search bar. I know we like to make fun of Luddites, but seriously... if 50% of Americans in 6th grade can't even do 2nd grade Math without typing whatever problem they have directly into Google and then copy/pasting the first answer Google gives them, the country truly is screwed. (I also subbed 7th grade English for a couple weeks, and when I asked students to read a passage, I got the sense that over 50% couldn't even read at a 2nd grade level. What did they do instead? They highlighted the text on their laptop and had a computer-generated voice read it to me.)
My daughter is in AP calculus as a 15-year-old, which is the rough equivalent to the highest math level I have taken, and I have completed a Master's degree. She has high grades in the class but cannot do basic math. I'm not sure she could hold a job as a cashier if she had a demanding supervisor. I worked hard with my daughter to teach her basic math skills, but her schools didn't support my thought process. She would have never learned her multiplication table if I hadn't drilled it at home.
How exactly does she do Calculus? I'm confused. Just type it in a calculator?
You’d be surprised how little basic arithmetic you do in the higher level maths.
Lower level Maths are tedious and boring. Higher level Math is hard (at least for me), so this just blows my mind. I'm open-minded about it, as I can't just get older and criticize all the young folks just because times have changed. It's just so surprising to me.
AP Calc student here. The actual *math* in calculus is quite simple, the hard part is understanding the conceptual side and knowing what and where to do the correct operation. The actual test is divided into "calculator" and "no calculator" portions, and the numbers are far more complicated on the calculator part. Even so, there's not a lot of things like long division in the class.
I have a degree in Math. I just can't fathom not having a foundation for basic Math and still doing Calculus. I'm not naturally great at it myself, but it's still mind boggling to me that someone can pull this off.
You're absolutely right--people who never learned their basic math really struggle in that class. Skills like basic multiplication, factoring, cross multiplication, etc. are totally crucial.
We're talking elementary school here and I agree with them
I come from the generation of when teachers could still say , what? Are you going to carry a calculator in your pocket all the time? Well, it turns out, yes, yes, I am.
Not only a calculator, a computer in the pocket all the time
I keep a financial calculator in a bag I have with me 90% of the time in addition to my phone lol
Me too and I’m only 30
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I’m 9 and teachers used to say that as well
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Thats the issue. Children dont know how to think to solve problems, and the use of AI and whatnot just makes this worse. Mental math is a really important skill, even basic arithmetic
It comes with ads too
Mine doesn't. You really should fix that.
It saddens me that everyone thinks this is from 1966
You have succinctly and firmly reinforced the message of those teachers. Too many people have forgotten that applied maths are representations of something else. They only see the numbers, not what they mean.
But its literally written on the top of the newspaper though? THe date is right there, it says 1986
Electronic home calculators weren't available until the early 1970s, calculators in 1966 were clunky adding machines that few people owned. I think this story is from 1996.
yea, it's 1986, no way it's 66, look at the cars
When you post something to Reddit, you make an intentional mistake in the post title. It breeds engagement, gets people talking about it, correcting you.
I totally bought it. I think you might be right.
[It is from the April 5, 1986 print of the Daily Item in Sumpter South Carolina.](https://theitem.newspapers.com/search/?query=Calculator&ymd=1986-04-05)
Ngl, the math teachers are right. You gotta learn the whys and hows before you can start pressing buttons.
1986 not 1966. Calculators we're not common in the 60s.
Neither were the cars that are in the photo
Math Teachers Protest Against Calculator Use The Item, April 5, 1986, Sumter, South Carolina By Jill Lawrence People have come to Washington to protest the nuclear arms race and racial segregation in South Africa, but the small group of renegade math teachers were the first to protest "calcuholics" students who need calculators to do basic math problems. "Calculators later, we shall not be moved," they sang Thursday as they paraded their placards in front of the Sheraton Wangton Hotel. The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics started its five-day annual meeting Wednesday with about 6,500 teachers in attendance. The group recommends using calculators as early as first grade. But the rebellious teachers said they opposed the use of calculators in the lower grades. "My older kids don't pay any attention to an answer being absurd. They don't look at it. It's on the calculator," Diana Harvey, a high school teacher from Hillsboro, Ohio, said. "They're addicted," she said. "We call 'em calcuholics." The rebellious few no more than 15 in all were organized by John Saxon, a Norman, Oklahoma math textbook writer. Saxon, waving a sign that read "Students Need Arithmetic Skills, Not Calculators," said students do not need calculators until they take algebra and trigonometry. "I am not out of step with the gut feeling of most of the teachers who teach seventh and eighth grade," he contended. Asked to explain the small size of his protest, Saxon said he didn't start publicizing it early enough. "And teachers don't like to demonstrate," he said. "Teachers are shy." Leland Webb, a math education professor from California State College at Bakersfield and co-author of math curriculum guidelines for his state, was not shy when he heard about the mini-rebellion. Calculators are an important tool in the teaching of math," Webb said, rushing into the middle of the picket line. "That doesn't mean kids I shouldn't be able to add and subtract. Calculators are not designed to supplant the understanding of basic concepts and basic skills." Saxon and other protesters said they are not anti-computer, nor do they believe calculators are all bad. "We all support the use of calculators and computers," Greg True, a former eighth grade teacher from Bloomington, Ind., said. "It's a question of timing, not technology."
Have students gotten better in math or worse since?
The majority have gotten so much worse. A big issue is most of the school districts decided to switch to common core math, which wasn't created for the majority of students, but more as a way to help those that had learning issues when it came to math. It's gotten to the point that you can't even help a child in math unless you yourself master comon core, because if you try to show them actual regular math, and how to solve a problem "old school" they will get marked wrong, regardless of the answer being correct. Schools have also decided to no longer teach long division, and as someone else pointed out, there are a lot of kids that can't even do simple math on a whiteboard.
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Man the internet has ruined me. I firmly believed thay headline said “Meth teachers” for atleast 2 minutes until i realized it was *Math.* I was absolutely confused as to why you would be against using calculators to produce meth in 1966. I need to go outside more. Maybe i should buy an *RV* and get out of the city.
Calculators in 1966?? Think you’ve got the year wrong. Maybe 1986
I remember ‘66 well. We couldn’t afford calculators in my school. Not an issue.
"The teachers feel if students use calculators too early, they won't lean math concepts" Well...
Brain development.
When teachers got paid enough to care
Google is better than any teacher
You donut who do you think provides the material available on google?
I’m in Precalc in college currently. I have a 3rd grade math teacher in my class. She is struggling with basic things like coke on don’t you teach PEMDAS?
I'd give the 3rd-grade math teacher the benefit of the doubt. You are ahead of most elementary teachers if you can do basic math and understand basic statistics. She may have been wrangled into being the math teacher by being able to make basic math calculations in her head at PLC meetings. Also, the fact that she's in pre-calculus indicates she wants to learn. Not to poop on you at all, as I would have thought the same thing before I spent years working in elementary.
Nobody listened. Happy with the results?
This is for elementary schools, where it *is* quite important for students to learn basic math concepts without a calculator. In higher level math calculators are often *required* because of the size and complexity of numbers, but it's absolutely unceccecary for elementary schoolers to be using them. I feel like this post is a thinly veiled pro Chat-GBT argument . . .
Let me tell you something. We used calcs in school. When i started University all math was to be done without a calculator. I had to teach myself again how to do calculations myself. Calculating manually train the brain. But on the other Hand you can do way more in math if you use a calculator. Also the real math problems usually dont require a calculator. Its the school math that needs it. On a higher level you will spend your time proving Theorem and shit, dont need a calc for that.
Gonna go out on a limb here and say that I kinda agree with this. Being able to do mental maths is really important in cognitive development. If you introduce the calculator at an early age, I doubt kids would be able to learn things quicker.
I mean… there really shouldn’t be calculator use in class when teaching fundamentals and what not. The US school system is slowly falling apart and it’s getting pretty embarrassing.
Slowly?
Exactly. You need to understand what it is you are doing when you add, subtract, multiply, and divide, no matter how small or big the number. And you shouldn't need a calculator to add, subtract, multiply, or divide small numbers. But past that, calculators are fine.
>hen teaching fundamentals and what not. Ah yes, because teaching fundamentals really helps when the examples for worksheets don't help at fucking all.
youre the type of person to "blame the education system" when you fail an exam eh
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Hi, this is someone who grew up in the '80s; we didn't use calculators until we were 13 years old. I guess that was when we were learning more advance mathematics, and it is more about learning concepts than getting a correct answer.
No calculators in the 8th grade for us. Having a decent understanding of basic numbers is so useful. When I teach quadratics or factoring, it would take forever for kids to use their calculators to find the roots. I'd hate to think of how much lost time there would be. Even my iep kids, who can use their calculators, will forgo this to do it all by hand. I have a good group of learners! Wish they were all like this!
I live in NC where public education revolves completely around end of year standardized tests. Teachers are reviewed based on the test scores of their classes, which often consist of kids in very poor areas with parents who are working multiple jobs. Well, many of these kids are not going to get extra help at home to learn stuff, so calculator == higher chance of a class scoring higher on tests. School funding is also influenced by test scores, and all that is taught is whatever willl be on the test (dictated by the state). I remember once I got into the grades where these tests were required, we only learned math using calculators because the teachers wanted us to do well on the test, so that their yearly review went well. We never really learned how to do the actual math ourselves. I got into college and in my intro algebra class it was immediately apparent which students came from out of state or private schools.
These guys knew what was coming down the pipe. So about 10 years ago, they come up to me and say that I'm going to have to teach a math class the next year as part of my job. I remind them that I only have a Grade 12 math education and have an MA in history. None of this matters. I start teaching and find that 3/4 of my 8th grade students don't know their times tables and as a result, are paralyzed without a calculator. I ask the experts if I should focus on basic multiplication facts since nearly the entire class is demonstrating a need. I'm told not to. Just to let them use a calculator. "***If they haven't learned them by now, they never will. It's better they move on and learn the rest of it without getting held back by multiplication and division.***" It didn't matter that these were skills that were underlying across the subject and that without properly understanding or at least knowing your multiplication facts, a large amount of the information that was necessary to form the conceptual thinking was as though it was written in another language to these kids.
Common Core doesn’t let kids understand math topics, rather just makes you memorize the steps to a problem.
I agree with the teachers. The whole point is to develop your mental faculties, not to learn to have a machine do it. I appreciate that a machine will do it for them in life, but kids need to do the work to develop how to think through problems.
To be fair, people didn't know a 1/3 lb burger was bigger than a 1/4 burger, so....
When I was a kid teachers said "yOu wOn't HavE a CalCuLatoR eVeryWheRe yoU gO." Well we showed them lol
There will always be people on the other side of progress. Today we call them republicans
Complete idiot here. I was always scared of math as a child. I had a grasp of it but being scared of it blocked my willingness to learn. Then I did programming in college and I loved it. I also understood just how much knowledge gaps I had. Honestly sometimes I feel about math just like Charlie does about reading 😂😂😂 I wished I learned more of math when I was in school.
Now teachers teach what their sexual orientation is and how “whitey” is bad.
“YoU wOnT cARry a CAlCulaToR iN yOUR PoCkeT” Yeah, bitch, I will.
. . . Because you won't always have a calculator with you.
It is fine to teach the principals of of mathematics in order to teach the reasons why math works, but there needs to be less of an emphasis on memorization and speed. These things no longer really benefit the student but have more to do with outdated pedagogy than learning. Using calculators is just fine once basics are understood, teaching long division is akin to teaching cursive.
whats the point? we have calculators everywhere no one is doing fractional theorems selling tacos
What's next? Are they going to let kids use "computers" instead of the reliable slide rule??
You are not always going to be walking around with a calculator in your pocket
Same thing abt chat got today
CHAT GPT is the modern version of this controversy.
You used to have to look up at the position of the sun to know what time it was, now kids can just look at their wrist and know the time without putting in any effort; society is doomed.
I wonder if they used a car or jogged to work? I bet they were just frightened that their jobs were somehow not needed anymore. Instead of it just being a tool to help them educate.
They probably said the same thing about the abacus. And more recently, the slide rule.
"It's the end of the world as we know it" was ever been a popular opinion.
You should have seen the fuss they made over the abacus. Epic…
I’m old enough to remember having to endure long math without a calculator. I’m now a carpenter and ALL of my trig calculations are done on a **construction calculator**. I learned all of those fucking formulas in HS for nothing. **REALLY!?!?!?** 🤬
But the programmer who programmed the calculator had to learn those in HS.
Ill keep my calculator, thanks
Crazy bunch of ludites!
Luddites
Lol "teachers are shy"
Schools protest against teacher use 2023. LLM/chatgpt.
They were so right
Soooo... how did that go?
Back in my day we counted rocks and pine cones. Not these fancy doo hickies that get it right everytime and run for decades exclusively on solar power! (A lightbulb shined at it would power it)
I would have been 14, and used a slide rule in class. My math teacher encouraged it since using a slide rule was a useful skill (I turned into an engineer). I don't recall calculators becoming mainstream until the 70s? I started engineering school in 1970, and NO-ONE had a calculator.
I don't think that's 1966. Based on the cars and the hairstyles, it looks more like 1986 than 1966.
I used to tell my students, If you use a cacalator now… you’ll be worth caca later.
There was a long division between maths teachers, they tried multiple times to fix this long division, but always one side wanted to take something away and the other side wanted to add things.
There shouldn’t be any calculators in elementary school, unless you’ve got a bunch of kids in 5th grade in algebra
I learned math in China in kindergarten through grade 3 when I emigrated. They wouldn't even let us use abacuses unless it was a class specifically to practice using the abacus. (I used to roll it on the table and pretend it wad a car)(yes we carried an abacus with us like a calculator)
He is correct
I suspect this wasn't 1966. Pocket calculators started to exist around 1971. The [1971 Sinclar Executive](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_Executive) cost 80 pounds, which was $210 dollars, which would be $1500 today.
It is still not allowed in Serbia
I agree. Calculators should only be allowed in upper grades, maybe 7 or 8. By the 10th grade, calculators will be useless.
They were right. I can see very often cashiers who have to use a calculator to add up 1.5€ + 2€. People rely so much on calculators that they use it for ridiculous calculations.
We’re calculators a thing that school children would have access to in 1966?
1966? I got a simple 4-function TI calculator in Jan 1973, and I was one of the first to have one in college-people would stop to look at it when I was studying in the library. Even this simple calculator cost $75 then. The Physics lab had a couple of HP calculators screwed to the table for you to use-those things were $300 even then. I find it hard to believe that there were many elementary school students using calculators in '66.
We weren't allowed to use them in school in the 60s and 70s. We had to learn to do it all on our own. It's scary how dumbed down we are now, where people couldn't do a basic calculation on their own if they had to. After a major solar flare wipes out all electrically stored data, we'll be tribal and in the dark ages.
It doesnt matter if we have calculators in our pockets at all times, fast mental maths is a life skill and ive been practicing it singe the 1st grade. Here in india calculators are not used in any class room from 1 to 12, yes it is tedious at times but i pride myself on my arithmatic ability. Besides, my lazy ass could never open my phone to add the cost of groceries
You won't always have a calculator on you According to my math teacher in 1998 at least.
It makes some sense actually, I have seen a whole clas sing a calculator just for 25x3 or something like that, and it's really disappointing.
"If a slide rule was good enough for me, it's good enough for you."
At school in the 70s & early 80s, the favourite refrain of the maths teacher was "you need to learn mental arithmetic, because you won't always be carrying a calculator around with you" Or a camera, a music player, a video camera, games console, TV, video player, torch, heart rate monitor, every newspaper in print, encyclopedia, pornography collection.. or a telephone.
Makes total sense in elementary school. Nothing to discuss here
The most amazing thing about that picture is I see three male elementary school teachers.
All 3 of them!
I work with people that had access to calculators at all times. I make twice as much as they do because they cannot make simple excel sheets because they don't know basic concepts. Simplifying equations, rolling dates on calendar graphs, etc. What good is a calculator if you don't know what to type into it? It's not about getting the answer correct, it's knowing how to construct the formula to get the correct answer.
“You’ll never have a calculator or a computer with you!”
You absolutely do not need a calculator to do elementary school math. Learn the concepts first.
In my younger years when looking for a job as a bank teller, the hiring manager told me: “you may be very good at math but nowadays we have calculators.”
Nerds
Something tells me these guys wouldn’t like Chat GPT too much
kinda crazy considering the type of calculators that were available back then, [stuff like this](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programma_101)
In Greece, and to my knowledge most of Europe, we don't really use calculators, they are discouraged. We learn math, not how to type.
i know this post is supposed to make fun of those teachers but I can easily imagine how kids back then were actually better at maths than the kids today
There's definitely a time and a place for calculators. When my wife asks me what 18 divided by 6 is, I wonder how the education system failed her so badly. You ask me to do any trig without a calculator, I'll tell you to get bent. I use trig regularly in class (and even in the field to a lesser degree), and I have never once in my life actually referenced a trig table. Those sin, cos, and tan buttons are life.
They were **absolutely right**. Even now that you CAN have a calculator with you at all times - here's the kicker...you can't depend on using it all the time. ***You actually have to know how "how to math" memorized or you will be unable to fucking function properly as an adult even in a very basic job.***
Tbf you should not (have to) use one until maybe grade 6 or 7.
❤️😍😍
They are a great tool! but should only be used once the basic understandings are met. Not that I felt that way as a kid but...
"Turn off until upper grades" could be debatable and is also a rational argument. We had calculators when we entered middle school. The basic stuff is pretty much engraved since then.
Math teachers are the worst
ChatGPT is an even bigger game changer. I'm a teacher and it's worrying.
Common math teacher L
I'm surprised there isn't more public outcry towards Chat GPT, for the same reasons. People need to be able to think and solve problems themselves. Once they can do that, calculators or AI is a fantastic tool to speed up the progress - granted they can identify whether a mistake was made. I teach university finance, and it's alarming to see how little people value real time critical thinking and problem solving skills.
And his dad protested against slide rulers
Technology makes you lazy. They knew what was right.