Math

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Now, I was never a huge fan of math, despite being fairly good at it, but this video sends a fairly disturbing message to me. Let me give a little background quickly.

As a kid, I was taught math using those standard algorithms and multiplication tables, so most of those methods on the video are new to me. I found this to be a great learning tool and a easy way to show the fundamentals of math. This fantastic foundation I have built up has allowed me to be both quick and efficient at my math work, as well as understanding the basic fundamentals of math.

This "new" math scares me in a variety of ways, the most prominent being the overwhelming message to rely on calculators. As many people know, I am not a huge fan of machines doing simple work a human can do, despite calculators being extremely useful for other purposes. Using calculators for basic multiplication is something that I am not usually a fan of, even though I am guilty of it at times. This reliance on calculators teaches kids nothing and actually detracts them from the fundamentals they are learning. I know if I were a kid, and handed a very simple solution to a problem, I might fall to the trap of simplicity in a calculator. From this video, it seems that young kids these days do not have the foundation to use a quick algorithm to solve a problem, which is quite scary in my mind.

Now, maybe I am slightly biased because math came somewhat easy to me when I was a kid, but I feel that a grand majority of people that I know have the necessary foundation to do a multiplication or division quickly and with little fuss. This new math books seem to be having quite the opposite effect. I was always taught K.I.S.S. (keep it simple, stupid) and I see no reason to muddy the waters with new, confusing algorithms. So in conclusion, I must agree with the author of this video and urge others to stray away from these books, no matter how glorified they may seem.

-AFR