Jennie should learn math

[silvarios]

N-OS X-tasy! wrote:
[quote=space-time]
So kid comes home and starts homework, one of the questions was something like "Jennie doesn't know multiplication tables, and how you can help her understand 8x7" or something like that. There were several answers, the correct was was to split the 7 into (2+5); Jennie knows 8*2 and 8*5 and add up the results.

If Jennie doesn't know multiplication tables, how does she know 8*2 and 8*5?

EDIT: graylocks beat me to it!
That confused me as well. I figured it was simply me being dense, but since others tripped over the same bit of information. Strange wording, right?

[N-OS X-tasy!]

jdc wrote:
Don't we all just end up using this? Never do the work something else can do for you faster and more accurately...

For simple math, I do it in my head. For more complex equations, I use Excel as a calculator.

[N-OS X-tasy!]

deckeda wrote:
My 6th Grader has always done well in math but the adults who sometimes help with homework go crazy knowing the answer but chafe at the explaining part or being forced to do the problem in a certain way.

This was my experience trying to help my stepson with his math homework when he was at that age. They had that poor kid jumping though hoops to arrive at the same answer I got using math as I learned it.

[N-OS X-tasy!]

Ammo wrote:
I don't think we had the expectation that there was time in school for rote memorization.

Which is probably the reason why my fifth grade teacher assigned as math homework EVERY NIGHT 10 addition, 10 subtraction, 10 multiplication and 10 division problems. Every night.

[N-OS X-tasy!]

Bill in NC wrote:
The "box method" needlessly complicates basic mathematics.

I don't necessarily agree with that. The box method is simply an application of the distributive property of multipication. In fact, I used the box method in one of my responses above: http://forums.macresource.com/read.php?1...sg-1825433 The difference is that I did it in my head instead of on paper, using a combination of basic multiplication skills to do so.

One still needs to learn the fundamental principles of multiplication to be able to successfully use the box method. There is no getting around this. However, what they refer to as the "box method" is in reality a skill that most math students never go on to learn, one that can make multiplication easier to perform once the basic mechanics of multiplication are fully understood.

[mrbigstuff]

M A V I C wrote:
When I was in high school and college I had a retail job where the owner had been a rocket scientist. He put people into space, designed the fastest jets of the time... he wrote all the store's software and was clearly very good at math.

We were down the street from a high school, and high schoolers would often come by. One day he started ask them a math question in order to buy. Apparently there had been some issues where the teen customers couldn't figure out how much money to give him to pay for something. So he would ask one question. The number would vary slightly, but it was always something like "What's 48% of 100?".

Most high schoolers couldn't get it. It didn't matter if it was 73% of 100 or 25% of 100, they still couldn't get it.

So he decided to go down to the school and volunteer in the math department. He brought his resume. Keep in mind people trusted him with their lives to design systems that would allow them to travel faster than the speed of sound, or launch them into space. The school said no thanks. He had to have a teaching certificate. A college degree and ~40 years as a rocket scientist wasn't enough for him to even volunteer and sit in a class with a teacher there. They would rather their students not know what 50% of 100 is than have someone with his experience but no teaching certificate help the kids.

I know what you mean.

There was a company down the road from me that was doing horrible web design and photography. Since I knew that I could do better, I walked in and volunteered to do it for them. They turned me down!

[DP]

He had to have a teaching certificate. A college degree and ~40 years as a rocket scientist wasn't enough for him to even volunteer and sit in a class with a teacher there. They would rather their students not know what 50% of 100 is than have someone with his experience but no teaching certificate help the kids.

I know what you mean.

I've run into this too. I have been shooting pictures for 50 years and have shot all sorts of different types of photography and have extensive experience working in studio and location photography. I am proficient in Photoshop; I also do post production for my client work which allows me to submit two invoices. I do have a BFA.
But I can't teach full time in some local colleges because I don't have a Masters. I have the equivalent of three PHDs (okay, two) in hands-on, down in the dirt, and up in the air photography. I applied at one school that turned me down without a Masters, yet a student I know who went there was being taught things by a retired high school photo teacher that were just plain wrong.
Amazing.

[RAMd®d]

When I was a kid learning math, I always felt the purpose of word problems was to illustrate to the student possible "real world" applications of mathematics. As I recall, most students vehemently hated the dreaded "word problems."

Agreed.

My problem was though I loved word problems, I hated arithmetic and math. Always have. I am somewhat in awe of people with good math skills, particularly in more advanced math. In the military I knew a kid who could walk through a problem out loud so fast it just stunned us. Part of it was his memory of many tables and databases and the other part was his ability to perform calculations in his head while saying them aloud.

For me, a word problem was the problem writing in English instead of arithmetic or math, but in a narrative. A *short* narrative.

I'm not familiar with Common Core, but I don't know that relying heavily on reading comprehension to teach math is a good thing.

I knew a woman who calculated, not counted, on her fingers. She did the four basic arithmetic functions with her fingers (no thumbs, I think) on a table, and they'd bob up and down almost like playing a piano.

However one does it, if they can *teach* their children to love math, they're doing them a bigger favor than the kids will even know, for some years.

[N-OS X-tasy!]

I've been doing math all day long today at work.

As I mentioned, I've learned to use Excel as a calculator. It's great for this purpose - it is like having a seemingly infinite number of calculators available simultaneously.

[Sam3]

Whenever I run into math problems, whether it be determining how much something will cost in a store, or how much I should receive in change, I have forced myself to do it in my head, even though my iPhone is sitting in my pocket. I have turned it into a game and am always pleased when I know the result before the cashier. I don't recall that I was ever taught the distributive properties of multiplication (or maybe I just forgot that term), but, especially since my daughter has been in school and has been using Chicago math and now Common Core, I've started applying those principals when figuring something out in my head, and the methods taught do help.