That’s we called it way back when, mental arithmetic. I have no idea what the new PC label for the ability to perform calculations in your head is, probably Non Keying Calculation Processing Via Individual Synapse Manipulation, or some such. It’s so disappointing that Phee runs straight for her calculator to do even the simplest of numeric calculations and I’m pretty sure it shouldn’t be up to us to show how to perform ‘minuses’ using pen and paper.
Any teachers out there – is this normal? Do kids learn NKCPVISM these days or am I being an old fogey (again)?
I still love the challenge of mental arithmetic. Every opportunity I get at work I whip out the pencil and paper and do my calculations (and there are lots of them when you work with shares and options).
Patrick is in Prep this year so we are yet to really see the approach his school will be taking with maths. I hope they teach the paper and pencil method. At least I know I’ll be able to help him with his homework then!
Cheers,
I remember when I would get pages and pages and pages of addition, subtraction, muliplication and long division sums for homework that I would have to do. They were easy but you had to do them. Now, I’ll admit that I need a calculator for most things as I was never mathematically-minded (not at all)… but it seems that Phee’s edumikashun is kinda lacking at school if she can’t do very simple maths like that. And that spelling thing that Rae was talking about in her blog… pretty pathetic. It might be worth setting your own homework for her once a week so you can monitor her progress or something like that.
Batteries? That’s shocking.
Calculators should be solar 🙂
Worth practising at least simple sums without the assistance of calculators and stuff. And something to discuss with the teacher.