Quote:
Originally Posted by Capt. Mike
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.
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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.