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Why kids suck at math today
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thecrecarc
Diamond Member
Sarcasm? 28....
I honestly do not see the need to memorize the tables, I get anything under 12 "fast enough", within seconds. I never really bothered to recite it.
That's all fine and dandy that you can handle this but what if your number is wrong? Every calculation after that is now wrong. Stuff like this is how you'll get 0/10 on a 10 part question even though you did the last 9 parts correctly. I'll give a practical example of this. I have a 208V electric motor and the line drop is 5%, what is the motor voltage? If you put it in your calculator you'll get 197.6V and from there we can calculate everything else. If you tried doing it in your head and for some reason you got something like 195, suddenly everything you do is wrong. Your calculated line current is wrong, your calculated size for a capacitor bank is wrong, you might use the wrong size of wire that doesn't meet the electrical code standards, you'll pick the wrong conduit size because you've picked wires that are too small, your calculated weight of the conduit and cable are wrong, your calculated cost for this installation is wrong, everything is wrong. 0 marks. You fail the test.
thecrecarc
Diamond Member
There is no way to definitively test that. However, from my experience in math classes, I was nearly always in the top of the class. And it is one of my strongest subjects.
Also, for what it is worth, to dissuade any stereotypes, I am chinese and do not know the multiplication tables by memorization.
I would make my kid memorize the tables. Just because the rest of the kida are missing out doesn't mean mine would.
When I was in 4th grade my mom borrowed a hand writting book from the school, and made me do it all summer because I had crappy handwritting. If i have to force my kid to sharpen up some skill over summer break, so be it.
DrPizza
Administrator Elite Member Goat Whisperer
Thank you for proving my point. Students today are "too stupid" to be able to instantly see that it's 34 * 10. It's just a skill that they no longer develop. In my example, the odds of an even semi-capable math student screwing up by hitting the wrong button accidentally on a calculator are much greater than the odds of a semi-capable math student screwing up 34 * 10. I wasn't talking about numbers that don't work out nicely - I gave an example that was insanely simple to do mental arithmetic on. Yet, you failed to realize it. See what I mean? You apparently haven't developed the ability to mentally rearrange problems & look for simpler methods of solving that problem. And while "it's just arithmetic, what difference does it make" - it's a excellent example of how commutative and associative properties can be used to help solve a problem. Once you get to more advanced mathematics - the types that are necessary for success in fields such as engineering, lack of proficiency with such basic skills is a huge handicap.
Oh, and it's already been mentioned, but professors who would dock you 10 points out of 10 for such a mistake on a 10 part question are few and far between. In all my years of college education (and there have been quite a few of them), I've only run into one such professor.
DrPizza
Administrator Elite Member Goat Whisperer
True. However, I was basing my comment on teaching algebra to hundreds of students over the years. Invariably, students who didn't have the times table memorized have been among the slower students to pick up on algebra skills. I won't say that better students don't occasionally make mistakes - for some weird reason on last year's calculus and pre-calculus final exams, I think I counted 8 cases where a student multiplied 2x3 and got 5 or added 2 and 3 to get 6. Just a weird coincidence.
Nonetheless, my weakest students almost always don't have the times tables memorized. And some non-math person was convinced at some point that "don't worry, he'll be able to use a calculator in high school." The problem is, when I explain 7x * 8x, those students have more things to learn/think about than other students. It's a huge handicap for them because their mind takes longer to process where the 56 suddenly came from.
thecrecarc
Diamond Member
I agree with this. The key is to know and find these "connections" in math and make things easier. Without that, no multiplication table is going to help a student. Likewise, that is why strict memorization of math is not needed.
Being good at mental math is of course, fanastic, and completely different from memorization.
thecrecarc
Diamond Member
That comment is so stupid, inaccurate, and inflammatory that it really doesn't belong in this thread.
Half of my electrical engineering professors are like this. One was so bad that she marked an answer wrong because "the way you calculated it was wrong" even though the answer was dead on. She didn't change it until I argued with her for a good 5 minutes.
One of the more relaxed professors will divide the marks for a question by root 3 if a per phase load calculation is done using line voltage instead of phase voltage. (line voltage is root 3 times bigger than phase voltage). For a 10 part question, 1 would be wrong, the remaining 9 would be divided by root 3, and your mark for that question would be 5/10.
South Korea - "The school year is divided into two semesters. The first begins in the beginning of March and ends in mid-July; the second begins in late August and ends in mid-February. They have summer vacation from mid-July to late August, and winter vacation from late-December to early February, and also take a short vacation from mid-February to March 1."
They get about 5-6 weeks vacation in July and August. They get 5-6 weeks in December, January, and February. Same basic 10 to 12 weeks vacation as US schools. Their school can't be all that hard if they can play Diablo 2, Lineage, and Aion for 30 hours per day.
DrPizza
Administrator Elite Member Goat Whisperer
I have no doubt that someone who has learned mental "tricks" that allow him to know the multiplication table without actually memorizing it can do quite well in math. I'm not so uncertain, though, that it's really that far removed from memorization of the table.
For example, to memorize the sine and cosine values for 30 degrees and 60 degrees, I've only ever actually memorized that the sine of 30 degrees is 1/2. And, I know the other answer is sqrt(3) over 2. So, I just think for a *very* brief amount of time - cos (60) degrees becomes sine of 30 degrees = 1/2. Sine of 60 degrees becomes "not the sine of 30 degrees, so it's the other one" = sqrt(3) over 2. But, that thought process is so rapid that no one would ever detect the difference between figuring them out on the fly & just plain memorizing them.
In calculus (and I teach calculus), there's a 1/10th second pause when I do the derivative of sin(x) or the derivative of cos(x). I quickly picture the graph of the function, to make sure that I get the sign correct on the answer. Ditto for the integrals. Since the derivative of sin(x) is cos(x), and the integral of sin(x) (dx) is -cos(x), and the derivative of cos(x) is -sin(x), while the integral of cos(x) is sin(x), it's easy to get careless and make a sign error. I simply take a minor precaution to avoid ever making such an error.
her209
No Lifer
theprodigalrebel
Lifer
Had to memorize multiplication tables 1-20 for the first 10 multiples. Comes in handy to this day. And the first time I used a calculator in class/an exam was in college.
oiprocs
Diamond Member
It's because no one is repeating it to them. In elementary school you pretty much learn the same shit all throughout, you just get deeper into each subject.
However, you have to build with math. So in order to emphasize those concepts, you should require multiplication tables and whatever it is in the curriculum ALL THE TIME.
However, you have to build with math. So in order to emphasize those concepts, you should require multiplication tables and whatever it is in the curriculum ALL THE TIME.
schneiderguy
Lifer
*shrug* I just got finished going through the public education system and the first thing I did was multiply the 2 * 5, then by the 34. You can't generalize that all students today don't know how to do mental math. A significant portion of them? Probably. But somehow taking regular public school classes I learned how to do mental math so I would expect some of my peers could do the same.
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