Heart of the City by Steenz for April 11, 2012

I occasionally ask people who have left school if they can remember how to do long division with a paper and pencil. Very, very few can. Can anyone here remember?

dizzyspin, seriously? What’s so hard about remembering how to do long division? I haven’t been in school in almost 30 years, and I remember how. Maybe it’s a generation thing.

Ditto

I can too. Have even helped grandkids…but I tell them you must learn all that new math….can’t help w/that.

“New Math?” It seems like every generation has “new math.” Just what the frizzle is so “new” about it?

I can’t extract square roots.

Division? Fractions? Algebra? Trig? And the dreaded problem solving math questions? You keep it…

There are a lot of fields of adult work, white and blue collar, where you really do need to know the principles of all those things, even if you don’t remember (or never got) the pencil-and-paper formalities. And putting on my curmudgeon hat, when I was in school they made you learn that stuff…the pocket calculator was one or two decades from being invented. :J

Not only can I remember, but I do it with some regularity. for five digits (total count) I probably do it in my head.

What is that a big deal?

I remember that learning was hard, but once I understood what was going on, it was easy. Tedious sometimes, but easy.

Computers do it somewhat similarly.

Well, I haven’t actually tried for quite some time, and I graduated in 1956. But I just wrote down some numbers and gave it a try, and I can still do it.

Yes, but I went into the tech side not the english/social studies side.And If you know this stuff, you get to help your kids out with it. And long division is a prelude to something similar in Algebra.Math builds on math, and those who do not have the prior stuff will flunk HS.

Not only do I remember how to do Long Division, I remember the general idea of how to extract square roots through Liebnitz’s Theorem in my calculus class. I’m willing to guess that I’m an exception to the rule though… people younger than I don’t seem to care about bettering themselves as much as my generation or even the previous one’s.

Just give in to the darkness… Become part of it… BE it… Math is for losers…