(no subject)
the older people in my office amuse me. There was an article in the newspaper, something about calculators, I haven't fully read it yet. Anyway, the older people were saying there's no need for calculators in school, these kids should do it all by hand... hahaha. that was laughable to me.
True, we werent allowed to use calculators back in the day, only on the standardized testing. This made sense because since you're on a time limit, they speed things up. But not everyone had this advantage, yet the more progressive/wealthier schools, had it. That time runs out quick when you're doing a math section, so calcs definitely are a benefit. But the people in my office who are saying this didn't have to take as many standardized tests in their day. They took regular class tests where you had little to no time limits and you could break out the ol' abacus and sit there and figure it out. When you have 60 minutes to do 50 questions, you dont have the kind of time to sit there and try to count on your fingers and toes.
I hate it when teachers don't even take the time to teach the kids the real application. Like, when we started working with calculators, we learned how to do it without them first, but when the test came, in the spirit of time, we were allowed the option of calculators. I'm in full agreement that the students should atleast know what they're doing, and using calculators below middle school is ridiculous in most situations. But these women actually suggested that no students use calculators. um... huh? it's not always because you're lazy, sometimes it's just quicker. I told her that if I had no calculator in calculus when I was doing logs and sines and cosines... it would've been so freakin shitty, and she was like "yeah well before they had calculators they used to do all that math by hand." Yeah well people used to shit in the forest and wipe their ass with leaves, that doesn't mean they had a great thing going.
True, we werent allowed to use calculators back in the day, only on the standardized testing. This made sense because since you're on a time limit, they speed things up. But not everyone had this advantage, yet the more progressive/wealthier schools, had it. That time runs out quick when you're doing a math section, so calcs definitely are a benefit. But the people in my office who are saying this didn't have to take as many standardized tests in their day. They took regular class tests where you had little to no time limits and you could break out the ol' abacus and sit there and figure it out. When you have 60 minutes to do 50 questions, you dont have the kind of time to sit there and try to count on your fingers and toes.
I hate it when teachers don't even take the time to teach the kids the real application. Like, when we started working with calculators, we learned how to do it without them first, but when the test came, in the spirit of time, we were allowed the option of calculators. I'm in full agreement that the students should atleast know what they're doing, and using calculators below middle school is ridiculous in most situations. But these women actually suggested that no students use calculators. um... huh? it's not always because you're lazy, sometimes it's just quicker. I told her that if I had no calculator in calculus when I was doing logs and sines and cosines... it would've been so freakin shitty, and she was like "yeah well before they had calculators they used to do all that math by hand." Yeah well people used to shit in the forest and wipe their ass with leaves, that doesn't mean they had a great thing going.