When is the last time you had to do any kind of math (or arithmetic, for the purists) in a situation where you didn't have the option of using a calculator, or using a calculator would have been an inconvenience? Please post in the comments and describe the situation. Feel free to post anonymously.
I can't think of any situations myself. The reason I'm wondering about this is that I've noticed people getting outraged that Kids Today can't do arithmetic in their heads*, and I find myself wondering whether that would actually be a hindrance in real life?
*I don't know enough kids to tell whether or not this is true, but I do know that people were making the same complaint about my generation, and I've found that my mental math skills have always more than met my needs.
1 comment:
Calculators only became an option toward the end of my high school career (I graduated in 1981), so the answer for me would be about 25 years ago. Early on, calculators were relatively expensive and lacked most of the scientific or graphing functions that became common a bit later. Back then, it didn't seem practical to buy a device that could only really help with percentages and square roots, which could be done on paper for free--and we were generally required to show our work, anyway, to prove we weren't just relying on a calculator.
As for not being able to do math in their heads, I don't think Kids Today are any worse off than some people my age and in between. I've seen grocery store cashiers of various generations struggle to do the math (and I mean just "simple" addition and subtraction, nothing remotely calculus-esque) when the register is not working properly.
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