this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
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Are we still acting like this excuse was the actual explanation for why you couldn't use a calculator?
They just said this. It was easier than trying to explain the nuances of education to kids. The actual reason was "because you have to learn to use your brain to do shit, it's kind of important."
Like, this is the equivalent of being upset the gym teacher wouldn't let you use a segway in class. You're missing the point.
While I agree that it is good to learn to do math without a calculator, it's not necessarily the case that the teachers who said "you won't have a calculator with you all the time" didn't think that was the exact reason. Also, there's nothing wrong with just stating the real reason if that's what they really believed.
Neurological pathways need to be reinforced. If you aren't doing mental math regularly your ability to do it degrades.
Obviously there's very much a negative cycle at play thanks to the prevalence of modern computing but even then it's simply a matter of most people not needing to use math much day to day.
To you it's crazy that the person in customer service wants to give you a correct answer without having to worry about mistakingly not carrying a digit and then customers throwing a hissie fit because "well you said 7531 not 8531 and you're a representative of the company so I'm going to pick and choose to pay the lower number rather than what I know I owe, get shit on by your manager for it, I don't care"? Idk man, to me it just sounds like a smart idea - leave no room for error, let the machine be responsible for if you're tired and can't mental math for a second. It even shows you the numbers you added, you can double and triple check the result within seconds, no need to go out and prove you attended elementary school.
and unless you're carrying one of those solar powered calculators in your pocket, how are you gonna charge your pocket calculator in the post apocalyptic era? You gonna waste guzzoline to run your car to charge your phone?
human math-bags?
Thank you. I also can’t stand people who keep saying out loud I’ve never needed a quadratic equation why doesn’t the school teach me how to do taxes. For one thing if you didn’t have to ever use a quadratic then you never understood maths enough to apply it and walk away from the problem. Secondly if school taught you taxes ups be the one complaining the most about why you have to do taxes in school.
Yeah OP was probably too busy eating paste to pay attention in class