It Doesn’t Add Up
Posted on April 19, 2014 under Storytelling with no comments yet
Stunned as me arse, if you ask me. Not me. The new math.
“He say one and one and one is three”
Come Together – The Beatles
There’s no getting away from it. Life forty years ago was so much simpler. You went to school. You learned how to read, write and do basic mathematics. You did what you were told. You left the house after high school and either got a trade or went to university. And then you went to work. Jobs were plentiful. You dated someone, got engaged, got married, rented a cheap apartment and started having babies … more or less in that order.
Today, pretty well everything has changed. After bouncing back a few times your adult children have finally left the nest. They buy houses, have babies, get engaged and find work. The order of these activities is irrelevant. They will likely have several careers.
Thankfully, one thing hasn’t changed. Two and two is still four. At least I think it is.
How one arrives at that answer is a different matter altogether. Welcome to the zany world of new math.
Quick. What is 8×7? If you have gray hair, you don’t even need to think about this. It is hard wired into your brain. We learned our “times tables” early and often. Any number up to 12 was fair game. We knew that 12×12 = 144. Another word for 144 is “gross”. How could we ever forget that? Like spelling bees, we stood in rows and faced off against fellow classmates until spitting out the product of any combination of factors was as natural as chewing gum and walking at the same time.
And then something happened. Someone didn’t get the memo that said “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. The first rumblings of new math surfaced in the late 60’s and early 70’s. Now I was a pretty average math student so I was lucky that most of the carnage in the field of arithmetic happened long after I was out of school. When my own children started bringing home math homework I was incapable of helping them.
Life is complicated enough for our children and our grandchildren. They are exposed to a dizzying array of technology. Why can’t they be afforded the chance to learn to read (with an actual book), write a sentence in cursive writing and do basic addition and subtraction? How will they figure out some of the basic things in life, like calculating a tip or figuring out a percentage, if their technology fails for a few moments?
I am not suggesting that young people aren’t being taught critical thinking. Or practical methods and tools that have stood the test of time. It just appears that way.
You’ve heard the expression “Everything old is new again.” I say we bring back the .37 cent movie, a case of beer for $3.14 and a gallon of gas for .50 cents.
And while we’re at it, let’s get back to the 3 Rs. Rock and Roll and Rithmetic.
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