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Post by chuffedstokie on Mar 10, 2017 18:21:55 GMT
Is it a dying skill. I'm in the process of coaching a 20 year old guy at work who is more than capable of doing the task in question but requires a bit of numbers work. We're only talking addition here and keeping track of a running total etc. It could be anything, 38 +44 +27 = or whatever. His first port of call was the calculator on his mobile, which is fair enough, no problem at all. I'm no Einstein either but it just seemed easier to do the mental work rather than hit the buttons.
He'll go far I'm sure but the world presents many a conundrum on a daily basis.
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Post by auntiegeorge on Mar 10, 2017 19:03:30 GMT
I wonder if it's a societal and cultural thing. So many people rely on their smart devices these days that the instinctive thing is to go straight to them, even for the most basic of tasks which they could probably work out in their heads.
The 12 times table was drilled into me at school as were surprisingly sophisticated (in retrospect) additions, subtractions and divisions. My instinct is to work out a sum in my head first or with pen and paper and only then go to a calculator if I can't do it.
God I feel so old some days!
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Post by lawrieleslie on Mar 10, 2017 19:49:25 GMT
I'm a GCSE maths teacher and I come across many students who have excellent mental arithmetic skills. Indeed I teach them tactics and tips to make it easier. The problem lies in the fact that when answering questions in GCSE exams, students must show workings to get that answer and if they don't they will lose marks. For example a four mark question will only have one mark for the right answer. The other marks coming from showing the workings. Consequently students good at mental maths are discouraged from using their skills for exam purposes and many get demotivated because of this. Our head of maths has been trying for many years to get exam boards to set mental maths sections in their papers but to no avail unfortunately.
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Post by chuffedstokie on Mar 10, 2017 20:10:57 GMT
I wonder if it's a societal and cultural thing. So many people rely on their smart devices these days that the instinctive thing is to go straight to them, even for the most basic of tasks which they could probably work out in their heads. The 12 times table was drilled into me at school as were surprisingly sophisticated (in retrospect) additions, subtractions and divisions. My instinct is to work out a sum in my head first or with pen and paper and only then go to a calculator if I can't do it. God I feel so old some days! We were the same with the times tables but most of my mental subtracting work was carried out in the pub scoring darts, strange but true and it actually worked. Maths homework without even realising it!!. |
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Post by The Drunken Communist on Mar 10, 2017 20:18:16 GMT
Who the fuck needs arithmetic nowadays? It's all about gender pronouns!
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Post by rogerjonesisgod on Mar 10, 2017 20:18:40 GMT
I wonder if it's a societal and cultural thing. So many people rely on their smart devices these days that the instinctive thing is to go straight to them, even for the most basic of tasks which they could probably work out in their heads. The 12 times table was drilled into me at school as were surprisingly sophisticated (in retrospect) additions, subtractions and divisions. My instinct is to work out a sum in my head first or with pen and paper and only then go to a calculator if I can't do it. God I feel so old some days! We were the same with the times tables but most of my mental subtracting work was carried out in the pub scoring darts, strange but true and it actually worked. Maths homework without even realising it!!. Darts is brilliant for mental arithmetic and snooker. Ever watched a snooker match and calculated then re-calculated what's the maximum left on the table and how that would affect both players scores?? |
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Post by The Drunken Communist on Mar 10, 2017 20:23:47 GMT
We were the same with the times tables but most of my mental subtracting work was carried out in the pub scoring darts, strange but true and it actually worked. Maths homework without even realising it!!. Darts is brilliant for mental arithmetic and snooker. Ever watched a snooker match and calculated then re-calculated what's the maximum left on the table and how that would affect both players scores?? I've said for years that young kids 'maths lessons' should involve them playing darts & snooker. Lets face it, adding up numbers is boring for a young kid, but playing snooker or darts is exciting & interesting and it teaches them all about maths, from simple addition & subtraction to angles. Too much common sense for our educational system though. Better to teach them about how white people having braided hair is cultural appropriation. |
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Post by wizzardofdribble on Mar 10, 2017 20:26:03 GMT
I work with some autistic people and I can tell you that teaching basic arithmetic is very difficult.
I used to work with young offenders and they could work out grams/ounces in an instant
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Post by Deleted on Mar 10, 2017 20:26:49 GMT
Darts is brilliant for mental arithmetic and snooker. Ever watched a snooker match and calculated then re-calculated what's the maximum left on the table and how that would affect both players scores?? I've said for years that young kids 'maths lessons' should involve them playing darts & snooker. Lets face it, adding up numbers is boring for a young kid, but playing snooker or darts is exciting & interesting and it teaches them all about maths, from simple addition & subtraction to angles. Too much common sense for our educational system though. Better to teach them about how white people having braided hair is cultural appropriation. Some schools do it but they are very few and only off their own backs. One school down south has a maths teacher that makes the kids have a game of darts before settling in to the lesson. I'd have loved that when I was at school. |
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Post by felonious on Mar 10, 2017 20:46:46 GMT
I work with some autistic people and I can tell you that teaching basic arithmetic is very difficult. I used to work with young offenders and they could work out grams/ounces in an instant Time to add drugs to darts and snooker then. |
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Post by murphthesurf on Mar 10, 2017 21:56:44 GMT
I wonder if it's a societal and cultural thing. So many people rely on their smart devices these days that the instinctive thing is to go straight to them, even for the most basic of tasks which they could probably work out in their heads. The 12 times table was drilled into me at school as were surprisingly sophisticated (in retrospect) additions, subtractions and divisions. My instinct is to work out a sum in my head first or with pen and paper and only then go to a calculator if I can't do it.God I feel so old some days! Same here, Auntie!  |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 11, 2017 1:27:11 GMT
I remember back in the day when VAT was 15% being turned down for a job because I could work out VAT quicker than the interviewer could do it on a calculator, and when I showed him hew, in other words 10% x 1.5 he thought I was too clever for the job, which in all honestly I was, it was just a filler before joining RN.
As Lawrie said, always look for easy ways of doing things. makes mental arithmetic a lot easier.
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Post by cooper67 on Mar 11, 2017 2:11:39 GMT
Me and the wife lived in Stone for a bit-and Alleynes boys and girls were out celebrating their A level results.4 lads were playing darts but couldn't subtract to save their lives-so I was shouting out the scores.One lad asked 'How do you do that?'-easy I said I had a proper education.One of the other lads then admitted he had just got an A in his A level maths and was going to Uni to do Pure Maths.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 11, 2017 6:45:50 GMT
Me and the wife lived in Stone for a bit-and Alleynes boys and girls were out celebrating their A level results.4 lads were playing darts but couldn't subtract to save their lives-so I was shouting out the scores.One lad asked 'How do you do that?'-easy I said I had a proper education.One of the other lads then admitted he had just got an A in his A level maths and was going to Uni to do Pure Maths. My daughter went to Alleynes, and I gotta say they are one of the best schools around for results, not because they are good, but because standards have dropped so much... |
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Post by auntiegeorge on Mar 11, 2017 7:11:40 GMT
Aside from footy my other sporting passion is darts. It is amazing to see some of the top players, particularly the faster ones like Michael van Gerwen, mentally calculate in milliseconds what number they need at the exact same moment they're throwing the darts.
For example he might need a 104 to finish, which is a treble 20, single 12, double 16. But if he hits the single 20 first he has to do a whole new set of calculations on the fly. How does he remember all the different permutations? By the time I've worked it out the leg is over and he's half way to winning the next. Amazing stuff.
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Post by chuffedstokie on Mar 11, 2017 7:12:50 GMT
Me and the wife lived in Stone for a bit-and Alleynes boys and girls were out celebrating their A level results.4 lads were playing darts but couldn't subtract to save their lives-so I was shouting out the scores.One lad asked 'How do you do that?'-easy I said I had a proper education.One of the other lads then admitted he had just got an A in his A level maths and was going to Uni to do Pure Maths. Scarey. That lot will be the next generation responsible for launching rockets, or not!. |
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Post by lawrieleslie on Mar 11, 2017 7:24:30 GMT
Aside from footy my other sporting passion is darts. It is amazing to see some of the top players, particularly the faster ones like Michael van Gerwen, mentally calculate in milliseconds what number they need at the exact same moment they're throwing the darts. For example he might need a 104 to finish, which is a treble 20, single 12, double 16. But if he hits the single 20 first he has to do a whole new set of calculations on the fly. How does he remember all the different permutations? By the time I've worked it out the leg is over and he's half way to winning the next. Amazing stuff. When you think that these guys are practicing for hours day after day it doesn't surprise me how fast they can compute permutations for finishing a game. In your example after throwing a 20 it leaves him 84 which would mean double top double 12 to finish. |
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Post by auntiegeorge on Mar 11, 2017 8:09:23 GMT
Aside from footy my other sporting passion is darts. It is amazing to see some of the top players, particularly the faster ones like Michael van Gerwen, mentally calculate in milliseconds what number they need at the exact same moment they're throwing the darts. For example he might need a 104 to finish, which is a treble 20, single 12, double 16. But if he hits the single 20 first he has to do a whole new set of calculations on the fly. How does he remember all the different permutations? By the time I've worked it out the leg is over and he's half way to winning the next. Amazing stuff. When you think that these guys are practicing for hours day after day it doesn't surprise me how fast they can compute permutations for finishing a game. In your example after throwing a 20 it leaves him 84 which would mean double top double 12 to finish. You mean treble 20 then double 12? (20+60+24=104) |
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Post by scfcwebby on Mar 11, 2017 11:12:54 GMT
Aside from footy my other sporting passion is darts. It is amazing to see some of the top players, particularly the faster ones like Michael van Gerwen, mentally calculate in milliseconds what number they need at the exact same moment they're throwing the darts. For example he might need a 104 to finish, which is a treble 20, single 12, double 16. But if he hits the single 20 first he has to do a whole new set of calculations on the fly. How does he remember all the different permutations? By the time I've worked it out the leg is over and he's half way to winning the next. Amazing stuff. When you think that these guys are practicing for hours day after day it doesn't surprise me how fast they can compute permutations for finishing a game. In your example after throwing a 20 it leaves him 84 which would mean double top double 12 to finish. I dont hold out much hope for your students mate |
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Post by murphthesurf on Mar 11, 2017 11:25:55 GMT
Me and the wife lived in Stone for a bit-and Alleynes boys and girls were out celebrating their A level results.4 lads were playing darts but couldn't subtract to save their lives-so I was shouting out the scores.One lad asked 'How do you do that?'-easy I said I had a proper education.One of the other lads then admitted he had just got an A in his A level maths and was going to Uni to do Pure Maths.EXACTLY. Just to veer off maths for a mo - about 10 years ago someone I knew announced that his twin sons were about to go off to different unis, so I bought a couple of student cookbooks for them. He was always going on very proudly (and rightly so) that in their A-level GCSEs they'd both got about 10 or 12 passes, all at A grade. In due due course the boys e-mailed me a couple of lines to thank me for the books but I have to say that when I read their e-mail I literally gasped out loud in horror as their standard of English was nothing short of appalling - they had no idea of spelling, punctuation or grammar - yet they'd apparently both got an A in their English GCSE. I hasten to add that this isn't meant to sound uppity at all - my point is purely that if we'd turned in any written work of such a shockingly low standard even at Junior School (age 9-11) we'd have been in big trouble with the teachers. Standards have definitely dumbed down in the last 30 years - no doubt about it. |
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Post by murphthesurf on Mar 11, 2017 11:29:29 GMT
Me and the wife lived in Stone for a bit-and Alleynes boys and girls were out celebrating their A level results.4 lads were playing darts but couldn't subtract to save their lives-so I was shouting out the scores.One lad asked 'How do you do that?'-easy I said I had a proper education.One of the other lads then admitted he had just got an A in his A level maths and was going to Uni to do Pure Maths. My daughter went to Alleynes, and I gotta say they are one of the best schools around for results, not because they are good, but because standards have dropped so much... |
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Post by Bojan Mackey on Mar 11, 2017 11:31:20 GMT
I'm absolutely horrendous at mathematics, I can write very well but if you present me with a collection of equations and sums I'll be a quivering mess on the floor desperately grasping for a calculator.
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Post by murphthesurf on Mar 11, 2017 11:53:38 GMT
I'm absolutely horrendous at mathematics, I can write very well but if you present me with a collection of equations and sums I'll be a quivering mess on the floor desperately grasping for a calculator. Between the two, I'd rather anyone be better at English than maths, Boj. I'm fine with 'arithmetic' - but show me any algebra or geometry and I'm a gibbering wreck! |
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Post by Bojan Mackey on Mar 11, 2017 12:00:54 GMT
I'm absolutely horrendous at mathematics, I can write very well but if you present me with a collection of equations and sums I'll be a quivering mess on the floor desperately grasping for a calculator. Between the two, I'd rather anyone be better at English than maths, Boj. I'm fine with 'arithmetic' - but show me any algebra or geometry and I'm a gibbering wreck! I remember in high school when we had to do Algebra I always deliberately got myself booted out of the classroom, honestly it'd have made more sense if it was written in hieroglyphics, then I switched classes which didn't work because the teacher had one of the most banging arses I've ever seen so I did even less. |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 11, 2017 12:04:08 GMT
I'm a GCSE maths teacher and I come across many students who have excellent mental arithmetic skills. Indeed I teach them tactics and tips to make it easier. The problem lies in the fact that when answering questions in GCSE exams, students must show workings to get that answer and if they don't they will lose marks. For example a four mark question will only have one mark for the right answer. The other marks coming from showing the workings. Consequently students good at mental maths are discouraged from using their skills for exam purposes and many get demotivated because of this. Our head of maths has been trying for many years to get exam boards to set mental maths sections in their papers but to no avail unfortunately. And that's the problem you give them marks for wearing a hat on a rainy day.
To receive the mark "A" "B" or "C" put a tick in the box A B or C.
23 GCSE grades a and b my daughter got then UNI , I was a total disaster at school but I destroy her on Maths , Spelling, History, Science Etc Etc. I can still at the tender age of 56 still do most maths faster in my head than my 12 year old Grandson can do at the same time on a calculator despite knowing that my brain works about half the speed it once did.
It's practice makes perfect in my opinion add that to the demise of games like darts and Monopoly and the result is a generation that can do nothing without a mobile phone stuck in their ear.
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Post by lawrieleslie on Mar 11, 2017 12:16:41 GMT
I'm a GCSE maths teacher and I come across many students who have excellent mental arithmetic skills. Indeed I teach them tactics and tips to make it easier. The problem lies in the fact that when answering questions in GCSE exams, students must show workings to get that answer and if they don't they will lose marks. For example a four mark question will only have one mark for the right answer. The other marks coming from showing the workings. Consequently students good at mental maths are discouraged from using their skills for exam purposes and many get demotivated because of this. Our head of maths has been trying for many years to get exam boards to set mental maths sections in their papers but to no avail unfortunately. And that's the problem you give them marks for wearing a hat on a rainy day.
To receive the mark "A" "B" or "C" put a tick in the box A B or C.
23 GCSE grades a and b my daughter got then UNI , I was a total disaster at school but I destroy her on Maths , Spelling, History, Science Etc Etc. I can still at the tender age of 56 still do most maths faster in my head than my 12 year old Grandson can do at the same time on a calculator despite knowing that my brain works about half the speed it once did.
It's practice makes perfect in my opinion add that to the demise of games like darts and Monopoly and the result is a generation that can do nothing without a mobile phone stuck in their ear.
Yep agree mate. The rote method of learning your times table in primary school, as we did as youngsters, is a good starting point. Some of the kids coming up from primary school in year 7 are able to understand basic equations, ratio, proportion, graphical representation etc but are bereft of the basics. It's not because they haven't covered the basics rather that they have not practiced those basics before moving on to more complex maths. As you say practice makes perfect |
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Post by murphthesurf on Mar 11, 2017 12:48:00 GMT
And that's the problem you give them marks for wearing a hat on a rainy day.
To receive the mark "A" "B" or "C" put a tick in the box A B or C.
23 GCSE grades a and b my daughter got then UNI , I was a total disaster at school but I destroy her on Maths , Spelling, History, Science Etc Etc. I can still at the tender age of 56 still do most maths faster in my head than my 12 year old Grandson can do at the same time on a calculator despite knowing that my brain works about half the speed it once did.
It's practice makes perfect in my opinion add that to the demise of games like darts and Monopoly and the result is a generation that can do nothing without a mobile phone stuck in their ear.
Yep agree mate. The rote method of learning your times table in primary school, as we did as youngsters, is a good starting point. Some of the kids coming up from primary school in year 7 are able to understand basic equations, ratio, proportion, graphical representation etc but are bereft of the basics. It's not because they haven't covered the basics rather that they have not practiced those basics before moving on to more complex maths. As you say practice makes perfect Another yep agree mate here. Can't be a coincidence, can it??????? |
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Post by harryburrows on Mar 11, 2017 13:08:29 GMT
Yep agree mate. The rote method of learning your times table in primary school, as we did as youngsters, is a good starting point. Some of the kids coming up from primary school in year 7 are able to understand basic equations, ratio, proportion, graphical representation etc but are bereft of the basics. It's not because they haven't covered the basics rather that they have not practiced those basics before moving on to more complex maths. As you say practice makes perfect Another yep agree mate here. Can't be a coincidence, can it??????? My 5 year olds are in first year of school and can count up to a hundred and backwards and have a basic grasp of simple fractions. Quite impressed with them |
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Post by lawrieleslie on Mar 11, 2017 13:16:19 GMT
Yep agree mate. The rote method of learning your times table in primary school, as we did as youngsters, is a good starting point. Some of the kids coming up from primary school in year 7 are able to understand basic equations, ratio, proportion, graphical representation etc but are bereft of the basics. It's not because they haven't covered the basics rather that they have not practiced those basics before moving on to more complex maths. As you say practice makes perfect Another yep agree mate here. Can't be a coincidence, can it??????? When I left Ellison Street to go Wooly Grammar in 1964 I was good at times table, adding and subtracting large whole and complex numbers. I could do long multiplication and division again using whole and complex numbers. I understood place value and basic fraction, decimal and percentage equivalent and I understood basic units of length and area. Also I'd learnt time and money basics. The rest I was taught by Dusty Rhodes and Abdul Rowe at Wooly Grammar and came out with an equivalent grade A GCSE Maths and no calculators in those days. |
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Post by DunnetHeadMoonraker on Mar 11, 2017 13:18:16 GMT
I recently paid a coal bill of £ 49 and I also decided to buy a bag of kindling sticks at £ 4.50. The young lady got out her calculator to work out how much I should pay. We were the same with the times tables but most of my mental subtracting work was carried out in the pub scoring darts, strange but true and it actually worked. Maths homework without even realising it!!. Darts is brilliant for mental arithmetic and snooker.
Ever watched a snooker match and calculated then re-calculated what's the maximum left on the table and how that would affect both players scores??Snooker is particularly useful for Physics as well as it teaches an appreciation of the terms force , momentum and kinetic energy as well as the frictional force between the ball and the table. Also there is the inelastic collision between the balls. Inelastic collisions between thermal neutrons and unstable radioactive nuclei are fundamental to the production of electrical energy from nuclear power stations. |
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