http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201003/when-less-is-more-the-case-teaching-less-math-in-school http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-lea

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201003/when-less-is-more-the-case-teaching-less-math-in-school http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201003/whe... "Benezet showed that kids who received just one year of arithmetic, in sixth grade, performed at least as well on standard calculations and much better on story problems than kids who had received several years of arithmetic training." I've wondered if it was a big waste of time to teach arithmetic in elementary school, if kids that age mostly just aren't ready and they'd catch up fine if you waited. This experiment seems to say that it's worse: it inculcates cargo-culting operations until you get the 'right answer'. (I haven't read the original paper; the reference came from http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/23/ssc-gives-a-graduation-speech/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/23/ssc-gives-a-graduation-...)