Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch
Man you guys had it easy. We weren't allowed to bring calculators to tests when I went to school. We got a piece of paper and a pencil.
Anyways it was too heavy to sneak in a calculator as they were two feet wide and 3 feet long, were powered by 20 9 volt batteries and could only calculate out to 4 digits.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Cheese
when I went to school a calculator was "your brain".
Seems we have lost those as well these days.
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To be fair the curriculum has changed quite a bit since then. I remember having to get a graphing calculator for high school. The teachers aren't worried if you know your basic facts, because you already should. They just want to see if you can properly work through problems. If you don't know the equations you should use, or how to simplify them it doesn't matter what you plug into your calculator, your still wrong.
Not to say you guys didn't have to do algebra or trig like that, just that math courses have changed, and I dare say, gotten more complex in 50 years.
Sadly, I will agree there are still some kids (and adults)who can't do their basic facts. I always had fun with those. But like spell check, I guess it's something that machines have taken over.
Anyone who is serious about math will know their basic facts. Just like anyone who is serious about writing will know how to spell.