The Education System

[Busman747]

The other day, I took a group of mums and toddlers to Gullivers World in Warrington.

It is normal practice for venues like this to "feed and water" the coach drivers and in this instance I received a voucher for £2-50 WOW!! Unfortunately, a meal (burger, chips and a small coke) cost £3-99 so I had to make up the difference.

A girl in her late teens, perhaps 20? was serving and I gave her the voucher and waited for the request for additional money She KNEW that she should charge extra but was totally incapable of deducting £2-50 from £3-99

Eventually, I decided to put her out of her misery by telling her that she was to charge me £1-49 and her smile went from ear to ear

You should have seen her face just seconds later when I produced a £20-00 note

£18-51 I eventually told her. £19-51? she said delving into the till, (It must have been my southern accent) I was SO tempted to keep quiet - but I did correct her

Was it her fault? is she just totally useless at simple mental arithmetic? or have the Government of the last couple of decades left us with a bunch of young adults that are incapable of calculating the most simple of sums without getting out the calculator?

Don't get me wrong, the youngsters on the Accyweb have shown that they have intelligence and can think for themselves so I am not making a blanket accusation regarding ALL young adults - but I bet there are more young people out there today that are just like this girl than ever there was in the past!

B.T.W. I have an uncle who is in his 60's? who could barely write, but his education was badly disrupted by the war as he was an evacuee and he is now self-teaching English. (It's never too late)

[Madhatter]

That isn't that simple busman because of the 99, instead of the whole pound, 2.50 and 4. If your used to working with figures in those amounts, you don't even have to think, it's just there, but she isn't, the till normally does it. She obviously couldn't have been used to doing many voucher transactions.

I've just got up and come straight here with a cuppa, and I really had to concentrate on that. Do you ever get like that your mind can't concentrate, or you've got that much going on or in a rush/panic that you just can't focus on the most basic things.

[Busman747]

Originally Posted by Madhatter

I've just got up and come straight here with a cuppa, and I really had to concentrate on that. Do you ever get like that your mind can't concentrate, or you've got that much going on or in a rush/panic that you just can't focus on the most basic things.

Not as far as simple arithmetic goes, There are basic short cuts ie: add a penny to round it up to a pound and deduct the penny from the answer. I taught my girls many of these simple shortcuts as they too lacked correct teaching from their schools in the 80's

Your comments illustrate my point perfectly Madhatter, you are literate, know far more than myself regards computers, probably got a few A Levels tucked away somewhere - - but struggle with simple maths that the older generation learnt at an early age.

At school nowadays, it is important to come up with the correct answer to a Maths problem using any electronic device available where as in the 60's, it was more important to show on paper how you arrived at the answer.

[Ianto.W.]

:engsmil: Your quite correct the people who set the standards of todays
education system, did not receive anything like the teaching your uncle
got.
Thats why the poor girl was out of her depth trying to subtract, you often
find this in a darts match the more experienced player does it for both
players.
One wonders what she would have answered if asked what the unknown
factor was.
X
Ianto.

[jambutty]

Employers and even universities have complained about young people joining them and they couldn’t do simple arithmetic or basic spelling for that matter and could not compose a simple letter.

When I left Primary school in the late forties I and my class mates were competent at arithmetic. We had to contend with the imperial counting and measuring system not the easy metric system that we have today. Pounds, shillings and pence where 12 pence equalled one shilling and 20 shillings equalled one pound with the Guinea (1 pound & 1 shilling) thrown in for good measure. Then there were farthings (4 to a penny), halfpennies (2 to a penny), tanners (6 pence), bobs (1 shilling), florins (2 shillings), half crowns (2 shillings and 6 pence), crowns (5 shillings). In those days the US dollar was worth 5 shillings so we called the crown a dollar and half a crown half a dollar.

There were inches, feet, yards, rods, poles, perches, chains, furlongs, miles and leagues and for measuring depth there were fathoms. OK! So we never used rods, poles, perches or chains, but we still had to learn them. 12 inches equalled 1 foot, 3 feet equalled 1 yard, 1760 yards equalled 1 mile and there were 8 miles to a league. A furlong was 220 yards and a chain 22 yards. We only knew about chains because that is the length of a cricket pitch. There are 6 feet to a fathom.

We had to learn the multiplication tables up to and including the 12 times table off by heart and did so BEFORE joining a Secondary school of some sort. We were even doing long division and multiplication by then too.

Today’s Metric system is so easy that there can be no excuse for an eleven year old not being competent with numbers. Why they are not has to be down to – in no particular order – the education system, the teachers, the pupils and the parents.

We did have a calculator of a sort called Log Tables and Slide Rule and we used them both but not until we had mastered not just arithmetic but also mental arithmetic too. There is nothing wrong with kids using calculators but they should first learn the basics thoroughly. It is easy to hit the wrong key on a calculator without realising it, but when I do and look at the answer I know instinctively that something is wrong.

[Gayle]

My 6 year old daughter is learning her multiplication tables at school so they do still do it.

I remember when I was at school and you used to get marks for showing how you'd worked out the answer even if you got the wrong answer - surely that system wasn't right either. I mean, I'd far rather have the correct change by someone using mechanical means than them saying to me that their long division looked good.

I enjoyed maths and was fairly decent at it but I did wonder what value it had in the real world. I think where the system is failing children these days is in 'worldly' skills - i.e. banking (yes, maths but making relevant) and politics.

[jaysay]

I wonder how many have used algebra or trig since they left school, the GCE maths was bassed mainly on these subjects as I recall, but I've never once needed either in 44 years. I believe that kids are allowed to take calculators into class nowadays, does't make for better general maths, but I agree with Gayle, I'd rather have the right change arrived at by way of a machine than the wrong change my working it out in some ones head.

[andrewb]

I don't think it's the Education System really. You get out what you put in. It goes back to the 'too scared to walk my own streets' thread, if people don't want to learn, and parents don't care, then there is only so much you can do to try and get people to learn. It comes to a point where teachers would be putting other people, who are willing to learn, at a disadvantage if they focus all their attention on the bad kids..

[lettie]

I was useless at maths and never quite grasped algebra, trigonometry and any of the other needless rubbish which is never again used in everyday life (well, not by me anyway). What I was good at was adding, subtracting, multiplication and division..........basic stuff but useful. I worked in a chippy as a teenager, we didn't have an electric till or calculator. I was expected to be able to do the sums in my head and guess what? I could...

Unfortunately our GCE was based on the useless stuff so I failed it. O level Maths was a requirement of nurse training and despite failing I applied anyway. I was accepted because I had 2 science O levels, Chemistry and Biology. Even in my job, calculating drug dosages and feed amounts for prem babies, I never use the useless stuff only adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing.

In my opinion, all kids should have a good grasp of basic mental arithmetic. I know that many will think it's needless because of computers and calculators but at least I can confidently check my change and know when it's right.

[jambutty]

Good for your 6 years old daughter Gayle. You can never be too young to learn multiplication tables although she will only need to go as far as the 10 times table as decimal is all the rage now.

We got marks for getting the right answer to a sum too Gayle but we got more marks if we showed how it were done but it had to be right first.

If you had been around in the forties and fifties you would have marvelled at the shopkeepers as they totted up a list of prices in old money and look what they had to contend with.

However the world progresses and machines help us in our lives so there is no reason why they shouldn’t be used. But what happens when the shop assistant punches a wrong amount? It is unlikely that the mistake would be spotted from the final total. So we have bar codes to take care of that problem but there are many shops that are not large enough to use barcodes and the price of each item bought is punched in individually. Machines do not make mistakes – people do and if a mistake is made would anyone know if their arithmetical skills are severely limited?

I use a calculator for large numbers but if I do hit a wrong key I know from looking at the result that something is wrong.

We would all like the right change jaysay but do we know what it is supposed to be before it is handed over. Of course we do, well many of us, because we can subtract the amount asked for from the amount handed over, in our heads. But only because we learned arithmetic to a competent standard.

Two of the three parts of maths - geometry (which includes trigonometry) and algebra - are more for future engineers/scientists etc than the average person but still come in handy in later life. I have used them although not very often.

Sadly it is the education system that is primarily at fault. Firstly pupils spend 5 hours less per week in lessons than they used to and secondly many teachers do not teach but hope that the pupils will learn what is being shown to them. Then there is the disruptive element that is more prevalent today than yesterday.

Algebra and trig might be needless rubbish to you lettie but without it you wouldn’t be able to post your views on this forum. The inventors, engineers, designers and scientists that made the computer and Internet possible couldn’t have done so without the full range of maths. However you grasped the most important everyday subject – arithmetic - as your prowess in the chip shop clearly demonstrated. Had you learned your arithmetic using the old money I have no doubt that you could have handled that equally well.

[Gayle]

When I first worked in a pub we had no automatic till and everything had to be added up mentally. I have to be honest and say that I don't think I could do it straight away now - it takes practice.

[Neil]

Originally Posted by Gayle

I remember when I was at school and you used to get marks for showing how you'd worked out the answer even if you got the wrong answer - surely that system wasn't right either. I mean, I'd far rather have the correct change by someone using mechanical means than them saying to me that their long division looked good.

From what I remember it was to prove you had worked out the problem and how you did it. If you just stuck the answer down without the working out you could have copied it. A long problem might have a dozen calculations within it so we were marked for each stage. If you messed up the last bit you lost marks for that bit and the answer being wrong. I do agree that it is a little odd that you can get marks for a wrong answer.

[shakermaker]

...or it could've just been a thick bird

[Madhatter]

She probably was shakermaker.

Busman i passed my maths exams by adding that penny on. I never learned my tables. my maths teacher saw how I did my adding up and went mad about it, his star pupil working out in such a bizare way. He must have gone away and thought about it, and thought how well I was doing that way, and realised it works for me because he started teaching the others that were strugling his way with my way. Maths was still my favourite subject, and I'll still work out things in my head if i can, even if i need to add a penny here and there. Only problem is that it takes longer than just knowing it, and its easy to get confused under pressure.
Yes I've got some levels but Most of my knowledge is self learned.

[katex]

Originally Posted by shakermaker

...or it could've just been a thick bird

Yes, Shakermaker..you hit the nail on the head .. even when we all had to learn simple multiplication, there were always lots of pupils who could not grasp the basics and maybe unfair to judge all teenagers by justifying that they are not taught this today. Cashtills make it easy for everybody, incuding the ones that can't add up in their head, and that is only fair, don't you think ?

My son, who is only 24 and my grandaughter 16 had to learn multiplication and as Gayle's daughter, sure still going on, just some people just don't grasp it.

I still use Geometry working on the theory of Pythagoras to calculate the corner to corner length of table linen to help customers understand what it will look like and how much point drop there will be on their tables in the restaurant, so not wasted on me.