>> Seriously. If you know how it works, do you really need to do it 200
>> times over just to *prove* that you know how it works?
>
> Wrong, it's not to prove that it works. It is to drum into your "thick
> little head" how to do it with out thinking. Compare it to repeating a
> dance step until your body does not think of the individual moves. Then
> you can build on it.

Doing arithmetic "without thinking" is how we ended up with Verizon Math 
Fail.

>> It's not even
>> like it's particularly important to be able to *do* long division; it
>> isn't something you're going to need to do every day of your adult life.
>
> You don't know how to do mental arithmetic, then?

Nobody ever needs to compute the exact quotient of two 4-figure numbers 
mentally. It's not necessary. You just need to be able to estimate the 
answer with sufficient accuracy. (Something which apparently a great 
many people can't do for some reason...)

>> Once you've got that, practising it on endless question sheets is just
>> an utter waste of time.
>
> It is if you don't want to be numerate.

Practising something you're going to need to do every single day of your 
life is worth while. Practising something which you will never, ever 
need to actually do is pointless.

Nobody computes 6-figure quotients mentally. Nobody needs to.

> And BTW adding, subtracting, dividing and multiplying is arithmetic not maths.

...which was the entire point of my rant, yes. Our "maths" class covered 
*only* arithmetic, and nothing else.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message