Tuesday, August 8, 2017
Mental Math
I work part time in retail during the year and I'm always finding new ways to calculate math in my head. It's a shame that students have resorted to using calculators all the time rather than challenging themselves to do simple math in their heads. I don't know about the rest of the world, but I certainly do believe that simple mental math needs to be a requirement in our schools. It's not very often that people in everyday jobs need to bust out their scientific calculator to do a calculation. The basic mathematical operations are really all we need to know for most jobs. If mental math becomes part of the curriculum again I know students will be far better off in their first jobs.
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Hey Spencer I agree with your thoughts. I understand why we have tried to move away from memorising and have tried to teach more to conceptualise procedures in math. That being said I do not like how kids automatically rely on calculators. It is very bothersome when I have said to a student "do it in your head" and they say "I don't have to be able to do that I can just use a calculator". In your example of working in retail our students should be able to go in a store and work out mentally that if a shirt costs 40 dollars and its 25% off how much the new price will be.
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