Mental Math vs Calculators
The cluster debates the value of learning and practicing mental arithmetic and basic math skills despite ubiquitous calculators, often referencing outdated teacher arguments like 'you won't always have a calculator' and drawing analogies to AI tools replacing other skills.
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Sounds similar to the popular question: why learn arithmetic when calculator exists?
Calculators don't do math, they do calculating. Which is to say, they don't think for you. There's not much value in being able to quickly compute some expression in a world with calculators. But there's a huge value in knowing how to know which numbers to feed into the calculation.
To me this is just like maths ... At school we learnt addition subtraction multiplication and division... Then we did it with a calculator... Same thing here ... Except the calculator needs much more compute and ram ... So the thing is we need to learn what is right before we can use these tools....
A calculator, for me, really doesn't replace the utility of being able to do some basic mathematics in my head. Even if you don't run into a lot of uses for mental math, I'm in the camp that thinks learning 1-10*1-10 and building a sense for numbers will aid in understanding of other concepts and in developing other cognitive abilities. Some carefully designed experiments could convince me otherwise.
The same way one explains that mental arithmetics are useful, even though calculators exist.
Are you really claiming that calculators require no skill?
Compared to people who lived before the widespread adoption of calculators, you should probably limit how much time you spend getting good at calculations on paper and in your head, yes.
"You won't always have a calculator in your pocket." - Every math teacher before 2005
Not being able to solve basic math problems in your mind (without a calculator) is still a problem. "Because you won't always have a calculator with you" just was the wrong argument.You'll acquire advanced knowledge and skills much, much faster (and sometimes only) if you have the base knowledge and skills readily available in your mind. If you're learning about linear algebra but you have to type in every simple multiplication of numbers into a calculator...
"You won't always have a calculator!" - Every teacher in school growing up