Originally Posted by
Scraps
My husband and most of the family are math majors - it really doesn't matter if you use a calculator or not - the point is to know the equation of figuring the math problem. Do you multiply - do you divide, etc etc. My 6th grade granddaughter tries to teach me "new math" when I visit. She knows all the concepts - has she memorized? NO But she is a straight A student in excelled Math. I can't do it!
The problem with reliance on a calculator is that there are times when no calculator is available or it is extremely inconvenient to use one. At times like that, knowing the formula is useless unless you can do the math that you need to learn before you get to the formula.
Last year, my now 8 year old grandson, who is
very bright, very advanced academically, and who I was homeschooling, told me he was smarter than me. Then he offered to prove it IF I would only give him the calculator. My response? "That will tell me how smart the calculator is!"
He was shocked. I wrote out some math addition problems, starting with adding 2 single digit numbers like 9 + 5, then went to adding 2 double digit numbers, like 25 + 37. He did fine on the single digit numbers, but without fail started adding the double digit numbers from the left most column. When I told him his answers were wrong and why, he asked me for the calculator so that he could show me that he was right.
He got the second shock of the morning. The calculator agreed with MY answers, not his! We spent the afternoon learning how to add from right to left and then checking his answers with the calculator.
The next day we had an almost identical learning experience with subtraction!
The next week, he again told me that he was smarter than me and didn't need to do schoolwork. I considered that for about 1/2 a second, then asked him, "If you're smarter than me, then why am I teaching you?"
Stunned silence. Then, resigned to his fate, he started the school day.