I may be wrong but I don’t believe I
was ever allowed to use a calculator for math in high school or, for that
matter, college pursuing math and economics majors. Did Texas Instrument
even make the fancy, “do everything for you” ones then? The emphasis was on
showing your work with the hope of providing the correct answer at the end. I was always good at that partial credit thing.
I took the AP Calculus test and it was
four loooong hours that yielded a purely average score AND no college credit
but then again, I didn’t have a calculator. Interestingly enough, my daughter
took it with the TI 83 in hand and scored enough to receive her first college
hours. Was she smarter than her Mama? Did she understand more logarithms? Or
did entering numbers into an external “brain” do half the work for her? Naaah.
She’s really smart and numbers are her thing, too.
What really struck my funny bone was when
my son studied for Pre-Calc tests last year. I often quizzed him before with study guides. Labeled at the top, “You are allowed to use your calculator
for this test” or “You are NOT allowed”. At least he’s learned some of it the
old-fashioned, long hand way! Now, if he could just hang with Finite Math, he’d be golden!
To this day, I still do my math by
hand. I will count the words in each of these paragraphs and add by hand. I divide
and calculate percentages by hand, and the probability of….
It could also have something to do with
the fact that I can’t find a “brain” in the junk drawer to help this sister out.
And really, the only math I wanna know these days is simple....
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Brain:
