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My parents invented a simplified division algorithm so they could teach me the four basic arithmetic operations by third grade, and it was so much easier than l

My parents invented a simplified division algorithm so they could teach me the four basic arithmetic operations by third grade, and it was so much easier than long division that I could never remember how to do things the conventional way. I just pretended to follow the teachers' instructions for the next few years. (All these methods had the same asymptotic complexity. Mine was slower by a small constant factor; on the other hand it actually made sense. It was just repeated subtraction!)

ravenstine 7y ago
My mom got in trouble with the teacher for doing that kind of thing with me.
- paleotrope 7y ago
  Your mom didn't get in trouble she just exposed something that the people with PhDs in Education don't want exposed.
- pjscott 7y ago
  Teachers are a very mixed bag. Some of them are delighted to see a student learning, in whatever way that learning may happen -- and some are just annoyed that the classroom's reality fails to match up perfectly with their lesson plans. If you're a nail that sticks up, some will try to uplift you further and others will angrily try to nail you down. (And most are somewhere in between.)
_bxg1 7y ago
I repeatedly got in trouble for not showing my work in the format they wanted, whether because of intuitive leaps or because of tricks I came up with myself.
- anongraddebt 7y ago
  This worked for me up until Algebra 2. Up through Algebra 1 I'd just do everything in my head, never show my work, and thus solved a lot of problems using non-standard/creative methods on the fly. Ended up hurting myself a lot. I didn't have any muscle memory for solving the trivial parts of problems as I progressed from Algebra 2 through BC Calc. This led to me choosing a non-mathy degree in undergrad. I could breeze through higher-level logic courses, but was essentially remedial for higher-level math.

ravenstine 7y ago

My mom got in trouble with the teacher for doing that kind of thing with me.

paleotrope 7y ago
Your mom didn't get in trouble she just exposed something that the people with PhDs in Education don't want exposed.
pjscott 7y ago
Teachers are a very mixed bag. Some of them are delighted to see a student learning, in whatever way that learning may happen -- and some are just annoyed that the classroom's reality fails to match up perfectly with their lesson plans. If you're a nail that sticks up, some will try to uplift you further and others will angrily try to nail you down. (And most are somewhere in between.)

_bxg1 7y ago

I repeatedly got in trouble for not showing my work in the format they wanted, whether because of intuitive leaps or because of tricks I came up with myself.

anongraddebt 7y ago
This worked for me up until Algebra 2. Up through Algebra 1 I'd just do everything in my head, never show my work, and thus solved a lot of problems using non-standard/creative methods on the fly. Ended up hurting myself a lot. I didn't have any muscle memory for solving the trivial parts of problems as I progressed from Algebra 2 through BC Calc. This led to me choosing a non-mathy degree in undergrad. I could breeze through higher-level logic courses, but was essentially remedial for higher-level math.