> -----Original Message-----
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List On Behalf Of Rick Fochtman
> [ snip ]
> Part of my now copious free time is taken up with tutoring
> high school math and physics students. My first step is to
> take away all calculators. First they do the math with pencil
> and paper. When they seem to have mastered this, then they
> learn to use an abacus.
Now there's a skill I never acquired. I must admit to initial amazement
the first time I entered a bank in Japan, and saw that all the tellers
were using abacuses (abaci?) to verify calculator results!
> (Multiplication and division are frustrating, to say the
> least.) Then they graduate to a slide rule (each one gets his
> own, for "the duration"). Only after these steps are they
> allowed to use calculators.
I once had a Pickett N-20 (or N-28?), a "Cadillac" among slide rules.
All I have left now is an E6B.
> The grade improvement is amazing and so is the attitude
> change. Much more willingness to try and much higher self-esteem.
>
> One guy complained to his Father about not being able to use
> a calculator and Daddy called me and proceeded to try his
> hardest to melt the phone wires. When I finally got his
> attention, I suggested he have the kid make change for a
> $13.95 purchase from a $20 bill without a calculator. The kid
> couldn't do it. Daddy called me back and apologized.
> He's a mechanical engineer. The kid was a SENIOR in high school!
>
> (Some school districts here in Metro Chicago allow kids to
> use calculators as early as 2nd grade! I find this reprehensible!)
What appears to be missing in "public edjamacation" these days is
teaching *how* to think, and *how* to learn.
-jc-
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