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Yikes, I completely disagree. There's nothing wrong with hard work, but I definitely think that doing oodles of calculations definitely has a quick point of dim

Yikes, I completely disagree. There's nothing wrong with hard work, but I definitely think that doing oodles of calculations definitely has a quick point of diminishing returns. I was also raised in a pacific-rim Asian household. Growing up, I spent lots of time doing routine calculation. Looking back, I wonder if that time was really that well spent. In elementary school, I spent an entire summer doing nothing but practicing basic arithmetic from sun up to sun down. Did it take me an entire summer to understand how to do basic arithmetic? Obviously not. Now I think the time would have been better spent tackling substantial problems with what I'd learned, rather than doing routine calculations. Does doing lots of routine calculations have an upside? Certainly. I can factor polynomial equations faster than anyone I know. While that's cool and all, I now feel like calculating speed is of questionable value beyond a certain point. Now that I do math for fun, I spend most of my time doing recreational math style problems. I can't help but think that these would have been a better way to learn. Since I started, my problem-solving skills have improved immensely, with nary a routine calculation problem in sight.

dkarl 14y ago
I agree with you, but in the context of American education, the parent is right. Whenever anyone talks about improving American education, unless they specifically say otherwise, they are talking about students who are struggling to learn. When they talk about relieving the students of the burden of calculation, they are not talking about the problem of kids who have mastered calculation problems being forced to do them over and over again ad nauseam. Nobody cares about those kids, because those kids get good grades and good test scores. What are the measurements that people talk about in education reform? The percentage of students with low scores. The percentage of students who drop out. The percentage of students who are not prepared for college. This is typical for discussion of American social issues; everything is problem-oriented and not success-oriented. Certain outcomes are labeled as failures, and reform is aimed at preventing them. Education reform is aimed at kids and schools who are "at risk" of producing undesirable outcomes. Kids who can do calculations accurately aren't even part of the conversation. So, when anyone talks about relieving kids of the burden of calculation, they aren't talking about people such as yourself who have learned beyond the point of diminishing returns. They're talking about the kids who still struggle to do the calculations correctly. They want to give up and move on with the kids' education before the kids have learned. This is linked to a perennial fantasy in elementary math education: that intuition is valuable and easy, while computation is hard and unimportant. I think this fantasy is wrong on both counts. Intuition is acquired only through hard work and practice, and intuition is only valuable if you are competent to subject your intuition to scrutiny. Intuition and calculation have to be yoked together like a pair of oxen, each pulling the other along when it falters. But as long as teachers believe that intuition is easy, there will be people willing to exploit the fantasy by promising to deliver easy, intuitive learning experiences without the useless drudgery of calculation.

dkarl 14y ago

I agree with you, but in the context of American education, the parent is right. Whenever anyone talks about improving American education, unless they specifically say otherwise, they are talking about students who are struggling to learn. When they talk about relieving the students of the burden of calculation, they are not talking about the problem of kids who have mastered calculation problems being forced to do them over and over again ad nauseam. Nobody cares about those kids, because those kids get good grades and good test scores. What are the measurements that people talk about in education reform? The percentage of students with low scores. The percentage of students who drop out. The percentage of students who are not prepared for college. This is typical for discussion of American social issues; everything is problem-oriented and not success-oriented. Certain outcomes are labeled as failures, and reform is aimed at preventing them. Education reform is aimed at kids and schools who are "at risk" of producing undesirable outcomes. Kids who can do calculations accurately aren't even part of the conversation. So, when anyone talks about relieving kids of the burden of calculation, they aren't talking about people such as yourself who have learned beyond the point of diminishing returns. They're talking about the kids who still struggle to do the calculations correctly. They want to give up and move on with the kids' education before the kids have learned. This is linked to a perennial fantasy in elementary math education: that intuition is valuable and easy, while computation is hard and unimportant. I think this fantasy is wrong on both counts. Intuition is acquired only through hard work and practice, and intuition is only valuable if you are competent to subject your intuition to scrutiny. Intuition and calculation have to be yoked together like a pair of oxen, each pulling the other along when it falters. But as long as teachers believe that intuition is easy, there will be people willing to exploit the fantasy by promising to deliver easy, intuitive learning experiences without the useless drudgery of calculation.