I'm really glad I was educated before calculators and computers came on the scene. I can do sums in my head or with a pencil - add, subtract, multiply, divide. I know all the basic tricks for mental arithmetic like rounding to 10 and dropping zeros. I knew my times tables off by heart up to 12 - but I'm a little hazy on that now. And I was never very interested in maths but thanks to all those teachers who gave me a good grounding in the basics. I use them every day.
I always know how much change I should get back when I buy something. Sometimes I give cashier extra coins so I get notes back - some of them look at you blankly when you say "I'll give you $10.20 and you give me 5 dollars back". I can work out how far we have to travel and how long it will take by calculating distance and speed. If I haggle with someone I know exactly where I am in the numbers - what 20% off is in dollars. I can work out the odds for a bet and how much I will get back in dollars if my horse comes in, even at obscure odds like 5 to 4 or 7 to 2. Its very valuable in everyday life.
I was trying the explain some shortcuts to one of my kids when I was helping him with his homework and he just burst into tears - it wasn't the way he was being taught. He didn't seem to have a concrete idea about numbers in his head the way I do, even when I said stuff like "if you have 6 apples and take away 2, what do you have left?". I had to draw the damn apples!
Somebody just brought me some figures for a total payment we have to make of over 6 million dollars. I could just tell by glancing at the numbers that they were wrong. And sure enough, when I went through them on paper with a pencil, they were! Then I spent 10 minutes going through the numbers with him, adding them up, checking them with a calculator - but my trusty pencil didn't lie.
Its scary to think some adults can't even add up numbers without the aid of a calculator. I think those that can have a big advantage in life - but it seems to be a dying art.
Can you kids count without a calculator or computer?
I always know how much change I should get back when I buy something. Sometimes I give cashier extra coins so I get notes back - some of them look at you blankly when you say "I'll give you $10.20 and you give me 5 dollars back". I can work out how far we have to travel and how long it will take by calculating distance and speed. If I haggle with someone I know exactly where I am in the numbers - what 20% off is in dollars. I can work out the odds for a bet and how much I will get back in dollars if my horse comes in, even at obscure odds like 5 to 4 or 7 to 2. Its very valuable in everyday life.
I was trying the explain some shortcuts to one of my kids when I was helping him with his homework and he just burst into tears - it wasn't the way he was being taught. He didn't seem to have a concrete idea about numbers in his head the way I do, even when I said stuff like "if you have 6 apples and take away 2, what do you have left?". I had to draw the damn apples!
Somebody just brought me some figures for a total payment we have to make of over 6 million dollars. I could just tell by glancing at the numbers that they were wrong. And sure enough, when I went through them on paper with a pencil, they were! Then I spent 10 minutes going through the numbers with him, adding them up, checking them with a calculator - but my trusty pencil didn't lie.
Its scary to think some adults can't even add up numbers without the aid of a calculator. I think those that can have a big advantage in life - but it seems to be a dying art.
Can you kids count without a calculator or computer?
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