B.C. by Mastroianni and Hart for September 28, 2015

It surely works

4 × 12 = 48 and 3 × 12 = 36

3 × 12 = 36 and 4 × 12 = 48. Not slightly more, much more.

There’s not enough room on this posting board to do it the Common Core way.

So would “slightly more than 3 × 11” have worked?

For a while in grade school, the way my nieces were taught was by roughly estimating the sums and products, This was before they were taught how to solve the equations precisely. I didn’t understand that method. For me, the precision came first, the estimation later as I used math in my work. But then, math was only a necessary chore for me in school. I didn’t find its usefulness until later.

Kids don’t learn to multiply, or even add these days. Calculators were supposed to free them up for higher levels of math, but instead, now they don’t even know what addition is. But the good news is, iPhones are going to free them up from memorizing, so they can spend more time thinking deep thoughts. Unfortunately, memorizing will be replaced by … nothing at all.

A few years ago I was forced to hire a bartender (nepotism) who was a recent college graduate that was unable to do simple addition and subtraction…un-friggin’ believable, had to reprogram the cash registers.

4 X 12 = 4 dozen.

Dad is not smarter than a fifth grader.

My daughter has a calculator for school, but when she does her homework, she shows her arithmetic on the paper. I’d say we’re just lucky, but we considered the schools carefully in deciding whether to move here or not. We have a district with great schools, and a willing tax base to support them.

I once sold a buyer for the school district in a state ( i won’t mention the state ) 5 gross of erasers for the school district. in the process he asked me " How many in a gross " ?

Like a Shoe strip from years back. Skyler was asked what eight times seven was. He said “High fifties, low sixties, somewhere in there.”

I used to tell my students that “I don’t know” is always a correct answer, just not on tests.

“What is… a math answer that has never been in my kitchen.”

I get funny looks from cashiers when the bill is something like $10.35 and I give them a twenty dollar bill a one dollar bill and a dime. Most times they try to hand the single and the dime back. I tell them “Trust me” and they are amazed when they owe me a ten dollar bill and three quarters. It’s like “How did you do that?”

I worked in a grocery store in high school and college. You added up the bill on the paper bag with a pencil and made change in your head. If the bill was $5.28 cents and the customer gave you a ten it was ....2 cents makes 30. 2 dimes makes 50, two quarters makes a dollar which is the 6th dollar so you need 4 more. Or $4.72.

Isaac Asimov had a short story set in the future about a man who could do math in his head. People thought he was some kind of genius or con artist.

Or as they taught us in engineering school. One is approximately equal to two, especially for large values of one.

Good one FlyerTom!!!

Just another piece of sexism. Imagine if the sexual identities of the parents had been reversed and this published in 1975.

Just another piece of sexism. Imagine if the sexual identities of the parents had been reversed and this published in 1975.

New Math

Well, 4 times 12 is slightly more than 3 times 12; but not quite as much as 5 times 12!

Its correct per common core.

Non Sequitur, for sure. Very often, Pearls Before Swine.