Posted on 03/13/2013 1:57:35 PM PDT by Olog-hai
A fifth of adults are so bad at math that they struggle to perform basic mental arithmetic, a survey has revealed.
More than a third can only manage sums that total less than 100 and have to use a calculator for anything larger.
One in 50 people were stumped by adding or subtracting in their head if the total was more than ten.
And one in three parents believed their children’s ability exceeded their own. …
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
One in three adults can’t do simple sums past 100 without a calculator
“One third of 18 to 24-year-olds admitted having to use them, compared to one in eight people aged over 55.”
And I can bet you when those 55+ year olds were 18 to 24, they sure as heck knew their maths (as they call it), probably two thirds of them...if not more.
Funny, something changed for people younger than 55 years. They didn’t need to learn arithmetic anymore, so the schools were MORE THAN HAPPY to do their part and our last two generations show the results.
Of course some of us aren’t so STUPID as to entrust the public (and, in many cases, private) schools to teach our kids - so we make them learn the right way, but we are STILL a minority, even here at Free Republic.
Anyway, we all know your rationalizations, so don’t bother trying to defend your choices (i.e., my school is different, it is run by good people).
“We old engineers sometimes found “trial and error” solutions by the Newton-Raphson method using a bamboo sliderule and our designs proved to be viable. We were slow but well versed in many phases of engineering.”
Who the hell are you to talk. What did you guys ever accomplish (other than landing on the moon, building the SR71 in 3 years...and earlier, atomic bombs and Hoover Dam). We’re much better now, we have Solyndra and Enron to speak for our accomplishments.
“I am with you on that. I had someone short me about $10 on my change. I called in the manager and demanded a register count. The register was off by over $100. I got my money and the employee wasn’t there the next day.”
Actually, it sounds like the employee was playing the odds there - he (or she) figured that Americans have no capability of doing math in their heads, and was RIGHT the first nine times. But then luck ran out with you.
“Hate to say, but my own personal policy is that when a cashier overpays me in change that I say *nothing* anymore and I donate the excess to my church.”
I hear you, but you are blaming the victim here. It’s not the kid’s fault that he had IDIOT parents that let a bunch of left-wing radicals ‘educate’ him...just so they could keep up with the Jones’s.
This ping list is for the “other” articles of interest to homeschoolers about education and public school. This can occasionally be a fairly high volume list. Articles pinged to the Another Reason to Homeschool List will be given the keyword of ARTH. (If I remember. If I forget, please feel free to add it yourself)
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My kids were not permitted to use calculators until 7th grade when they were well into algebra and they needed it for the time saver that it was.
But by then, they KNEW all their multiplication and addition facts and knew how to use them to also subtract and divide.
My criteria for them being allowed to use calculators was that they had to demonstrate to my satisfaction, that they knew their math facts and could use the, all in their heads.
I need a pencil and paper but I can do it. Do it in my head? You must be joking! I was only taught to do it with pencil and paper.
Being a survivor years ago of some fairly high math in a top university and engineering program I have watched and been interested in what schools at all levels teach as to ‘math’. It doesn’t surprise me that much of what was ‘higher math’ then is/can be taken as ordinary useful ‘math’ today. However. I sometimes think that what is being taught today is just ‘programed manipulation’, a la calculator, as opposed to ‘ self logical’ construction. I have a granddaughter going for a business degree who is taking special calculus instruction. I checked the web as to college, regular and others, and found that indeed calculus was being required for a business degree. After some thought I recollected that my courses in calculus did have ‘dollar’ problems,so it is just a matter of changing times and perspectives .
My sister in law is from spain and is a teacher in the US, she will love this when I show it to her.
The old British nautical mile is 6080 feet. The international nautical mile is 1852 meters, or 6076.115 feet.
Six out of five adults don't understand fractions.
Apparently when I was a lad we were being given the “sea mile” measurement, we were definitely told 6,000 feet which is 1000 fathoms.
“The sea mile has also been defined as 6,000 feet or 1,000 fathoms, for example in Dresner’s Units of Measurement. Dresner includes a remark to the effect that this must not be confused with the nautical mile. Richard Norwood in The Seamans Practice (1637) determined that 1/60th of a degree of any great circle on Earth’s surface was 6,120 feet (vs the modern value of 6,080 feet). He added: “if any man think it more safe and convenient in Sea-reckonings” he may assign 6,000 feet to a mile, relying on context to determine the type of mile.[10][11]”
I just scraped by in high school algebra, and at the end of my sophomore year, the nun gave me a barely passing C minus and told me never to darken any math class again. I graduated from college magna cum laude, without ever taking math. But now, at the tender age of 70, I can look at hymn numbers at Mass and add them in my head, divide it by the number of hymns and come up with the average number. I’ve always said that if God wanted us to add, subtract, multiple and divide letters, he wouldn’t have given us numbers.
See your catching on to this so called new math.
I guess you do know what a nautical mile is, at that.
Back in the old days when I was in high school, my math teacher graded all test with a blank piece of paper. The more you worked in your head even if you missed a few the better the grade.
I love the look of extreme fear you get from a cashier when you come up with $.03 worth of rounding so you get back an “even” $2.25 - after they’ve punched in your $20 cash payment.
I’m a meanie like that.
Homeschooled?
Five out of four high school algebra teachers are terrible! ;)
Well, I know what I was taught as a child anyway, whether it is technically correct at this time seems uncertain.
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