Agreed! To build on your point - I used to teach Algebra 1 in a Title 1 school. What many people don't realize about "memorizing math facts" in elementary schoo

Agreed! To build on your point - I used to teach Algebra 1 in a Title 1 school. What many people don't realize about "memorizing math facts" in elementary school is that if someone doesn't have a basic level of numeracy, it's really hard to learn more advanced concepts (like solving for x in a simple equation). You can't understand solving for x if you don't fundamentally understand how two numbers change when I subtract 5 from each of them, and you also don't have free working memory in your brain for learning if you're using all your working memory to do the subtraction. It's an anecdotal observation, but it's something that isn't often talked about in conversations about "memorizing facts". I guess what I'm trying to say is it's useful to be able to calculate a tip without a calculator or tally a grocery bill. But more importantly, it'll be a big hurdle to learning slightly more advanced math concepts if you can't do some of the basics in your head.