Can any of the younger generation do mental math?

Once again I encountered it: I had a bill that was $16.52 for lunch at a fast food place. So I gave the cashier a twenty, a single, and two cents. She looked at me like I was crazy, and counted the cash twice. She almost shrugged as she put my amount into the cash register, and I could see how surprised she was when the change amount came back as $5.50. As she handed me the change, I could see on her face the question “how did he do that?”

This happens far too often. My wife says it is because children no longer really learn math in school. They get to calculators quickly. Memorize the times tables? Do long division by hand? Figure out percentages? It seems like these are relics of the past, like learning cursive writing. This is elementary school stuff, and it looks like one can graduate high school without learning them.

Mental math seems to have gone the way of the Dodo bird.

Reading a map or remembering a phone number, not as important but will probably see the same fate.

Generally I agree with you but there are exceptions. My fifth grade grandson can do all sort of math in his head and simple algebra when I pose simple, practical problems like time/distance or miles/gallon.

That said he truly is a very intelligent kid. Now if I could just get him to do something besides videogame thumb exercise, he might have a chance to make something of himself.

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Map reading, no problem, phone numbers ..... I know my wifes number. I could not call anyone else if my phone died or google contacts got corrupted. Math has never been my strong suit. When people give me extra money I always count it out in my head but it takes be a few seconds...I can get there though. Thankfully there are not that many old farts like you who use cash any more. Easily 95%+ of the transactions are electronic. I had someone write a check the other day and I had to ask a colleague how to process it on the register, for the life of me I could not remember.

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Are you of the younger generation as in 20 YOA or younger? I already know that math is not your strong suit! Are you sure I mostly use cash, and am an "old fart"? Did you say, would you like fries with that order after you had someone else process that order by check that you took but could not complete?

Your fast food cashier is probably not an exemplary STEM pursuant and shouldnt reasonably be expected to do anything beyond the register.

Times tables and long division are pretty much just academic exercises at this point. If you can give me a real life situation in 2020 where long division MUST be done with pen and paper, I'd love to hear it. I see no problem with teaching concepts that are then applied via tools like calculators and computers, but by hand, mentally, etc. is simply tedious when any application in real life will include a tool.

I remember teachers telling me "you need to learn it by hand because you won't have a calculator to rely on in real life"...hilariously inaccurate.

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Doing math by hand lets you know how it all works. School is about education and learning. I can’t use a slide rule any longer, nor an abacus, but at some point in my education, we were taught those things and demonstrated proficiency. Not because I would necessarily need them in my job, but because an educated person should have a decent awareness of them. Same with log tables and figuring out sines, cosines, and tangents.

Can you consider yourself educated if you don’t know Shakespeare? Not every play, but who he was and his position in our civilization? Aristotle and Plato. Alexander and Caesar. Moses and Jesus. Washington and Lincoln. A Western person needs to have knowledge of these people if he wants to consider himself educated.


Excuse me, but I have to go chase some kids off of my lawn.

Actually they do teach math by hand pretty well. Sometime back I handed my grandson a pencil and paper and rattled a couple of large numbers with decimals and asked him to divide one by the other. He knocked it right out. He also knew his multiplication tables cold. He does math in his head as good as I do.

I don’t know if all schools are teaching that well though.

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2001 SLK 320 six speed manual
2014 Porsche Cayenne six speed manual

Annoy a Liberal, Read the Constitution

Yes it does, but not efficiently. You can learn the concepts without needing to do it all by hand. Especially once it gets more complex, the conceptual learning supercedes the manual work very quickly.

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TC
Current stable:
- 2004 Mazda RALLYWANKEL
- 2007 Saturn sky redline
- 2004 Explorer...under surgery.

Past: 135i, GTI, 300E, 300SD, 300SD, Stealth

Not giving you grief, I think you meant to say two singles, or $15.52. As got $5.50 back, clearly you got it right at the time.

I have encountered this phenomenon also. I ask myself, is the first time they have seen this? It's the same thing - an incredulous look and they try to give me the extra money back. 'Please dude, it's less than $20, all you need to do give me is a twenty.'

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You stole a dollar from that poor girl?

In the days of yore, we had a chain restaurant in NYC called the Automat. You didn't order at your table. Instead, there was a wall of tiny vending machines. You spotted something you liked through the windows of the machines, pumped in some change, and pulled out your sandwich or muffin. Since the machines only accepted silver, there was a kiosk in the center of the floor where you could exchange your bills for change, or turn in your quarters for bills. The gals (it was always women) who operated those booths could grab a handful of quarters and count them by weight. I never figured out the technique, but they never got it wrong.

And here she is:

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Lol, right.

In my head, good. Typing on an iPad, not so much.