<p>I would be more concerned with adults who don’t know how to do that and there are plenty of them out there.</p>
<p>I got my first calculator when I was a freshman in college in 1974. I worked in retail in high school and the register did not tell me how much change was owed. Spell check didn’t exist. I know that all these things make life easier, and I use them, but I think the kids now are dependent upon them.</p>
<p>Young folks today are also PHYSICALLY WEAK. In my day we got good wholesome exercise crank starting the car, none of these here electric starter motors. AND power steering, what’s that all about? If you want the ship, or the car, to turn, YOU should put the effort into it.</p>
<p>Sorghum, in my day we had to walk five miles in the snow uphill to get to the car to turn the crank…
I love to give them the change after they have put the amount in the register…makes the cashier very confused.</p>
<p>My kid was handed a calculator in 2nd grade. She is not confident w/o the calculator. She too had Everyday Math and they never learned to do an efficient long division method (tho I liked many components of that program). I force her to do mental math all the time just to point out how deficient she is - she’s getting better, and would not be clueless as oldfort’s co-shoppers were. I agree, it’s sad. Maybe stores should install signs that shout out the real price??</p>
<p>She did take a ‘Intro to Business’ class that covered mortgages, checkbooks, etc. but that class would be well below the radar of most CC type kids.</p>
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<p>Textbooks didn’t weight 15 pounds each when we were young.</p>
<p>I regularly lift at the gym, at home and sometimes in the office. My son does very little weight-lifting but he has several muscle groups that are stronger than mine. Running around campus all day with thirty pounds of stuff can build strength.</p>
<p>Don’t even get me started on Everday Math. ;)</p>
<p>I notice that kids sometimes can’t tell what time it is on an analog clock anymore, unless they have a digital watch or phone to help them.</p>
<p>Everyday Math - :eek:</p>
<p>I am all for teaching the fun parts of Everyday Math…if they also include the drill and kill mastery of the other stuff. Like regular multiplication and long division. These kids have short attention spans and EM just isn’t getting the job done in my school district. Yet, they don’t have the funds to switch the program, either.</p>
<p>What’s really scary is when we cash out at the shop at the end of the day. If I hand one of my part timers, a high school senior, seven $20 bills she doesn’t know how much money it is without counting bill by bill. She’ll write down $130 every time. Yikes!</p>
<p>Mental Math was always one of my strong points so when my D started learning math I worked with her to understand the tricks involved, not hard once understood. I blew her grade 10 math teacher away 3 years ago when they were doing a simple math test and I taught my D how to use a slide rule. Her teacher was less than half my age (that embarassing) and had never seen one so the slide rule was the talk of the class for a few days. I actually found this very funny because when I was in college the calculator had just come out and we were not allowed to use them in school.</p>
<p>S2 is/was not permitted to use calculators in any math classes in college.</p>
<p>he’s also physically fit having to hike up and down the mountain every day ;)</p>