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.
|
Not so fast. $16.52 from $21.02 is $4.50.
Skills are developed and honed as necessary, and lost when unnecessary. Nobody today knows how to use a side rule, or milk a cow, or drive a manual transmission vehicle.
Back on Bimmerfest, I have a reputation for being a militant anti-lease advocate. I've done the math. There are circumstances were leasing a BMW makes sense (the big one being high annual mileage). But, those are only applicable to a small segment of the 55% of new BMW's put on the road that are leased. BMW charges a "excess tire wear fee" for any tire on a lease turn-in that has less than 4/32" of tread in any circumferential channel. A BF-er from California said that he got an expensive two-year lease instead of the typical three-year lease to avoid the excess tire wear fee. But, those two-year leases area about $150/month more on an entry-level BMW. So, over three years, that's an extra $5400 to avoid buying a $1000 set of tires.
Something I've seen is that many of the militant pro-leasers on Bimmerfest live in California. I'm starting to suspect they don't teach math in the public schools out there, anymore. In those immortal words of Barbie... "Math class is tough."
https://youtu.be/_xjgI5oN8DM
Math class IS tough. You're either right or wrong, and it separates the smart people from the dumb ones. That disrupts a lot of agendas.