Comment by SoftTalker
6 days ago
I think it’s pretty hard to reason about numbers without having mastered arithmetic. Or at least beat your brain against it long enough that you understand the concepts even if you don’t have all the facts memorized.
6 days ago
I think it’s pretty hard to reason about numbers without having mastered arithmetic. Or at least beat your brain against it long enough that you understand the concepts even if you don’t have all the facts memorized.
I disagree; i think the focus on arithmetic actually enables people saying they're "bad at math" when symbolic reasoning is a completely different (and arguably much easier) skill. You an easily learn algebra without knowing long division.
Hell, if I had to do long division today without a computer I'd have to re-derive it.
I don't think it's so much about doing a long division. To me, it's more about having an intuition that 30/100 is roughly "one third", and that you can put three thirds in the full thing.
And I don't mean specifically those numbers, obviously. Same goes with 20/100, or understanding orders of magnitudes, etc.
Many people will solve a "maths problem" with their calculator, end up with a result that says that "the frog is moving at 21km/s" and not realise that it doesn't make any sense. "Well I applied the recipe, the calculator gave me this number, I assume this number is correct".
It's not only arithmetic of course, but it's part of it. Some kind of basic intuition about maths. Just look at what people were saying during Covid. I have heard so many people say completely wrong stuff because they just don't have a clue when they see a graph. And then they vote.
Fair point, I concede that maybe i'm overly-optimistic at even basic intuition for basic figures and concepts.
I agree you can learn algebra without knowing (or being good at) long division on paper, but you need to have a good conceptual understanding of what division is and I don't think a lot of people get that without the rote process of doing it over and over in elementary school.