Been out today at a local fete thing, bought a cheese bap £1.50 and a bit of cake 80p.....girl (late teens at least) HAD TO USE A CALCULATOR to decide I owed her £2.30 :-O :-O
Chris

I don't know what this generation is coming to. Imagine not being able to count on her fingers ;-)

I didn't have a calculator when at school, nor were you allowed to take them into class or exams but i know from my sons that this is allowed these days. such i shame that they don't expect children to be able to work out basic maths in their heads anymore.

Id say give her a break. Teenagers have bad press these days at least she is out earning some money. We were allowed to use calculators at school so did not need to use our brain so much. Basic maths is needed to get by but that poor girl may have had a learning disability, She more than likely has many qualities that you never saw. 

I was born the same year as you daisysmum and we weren't allowed calculators.  Actually shocks me that they are allowed to use them these days!  Although I have to say maths was my worst subject, I hated it!

im 17, doing my alevels.
i have to say the education system is bad, i sometimes have to think about it, but i just count it, like they used to before calculators.
im doing maths at alevel, but that is all algebra.

From talking to my nephew and niece I had already gathered that what we knew as "mental arithmetic" is not longer done at school, which sems a great shame as it is, of course, very useful, however, in the maths. they studied in the higher classes of Junior school level they did  have to do estimating (????) which as far as I could gather (they were a bit hazy about it) mainly consisted looking at pictures of groups of objects and guessing which group was bigger or smaller, and then guessing to the nearest ten how many were in the groups!  IT seemed quite piontless to me, and to them, whereas learning simple mental addition and subtraction would have been a valuable life skill.  My niece is now choosing her A level subjects, and one tutor has been pushing a course in "Critical Thinking"!!!!!

i do think that GCSE's are ubish and dont prepear you for teh adult life at all, there are some right thickohs outy there that got As in their GCSEs. and Alevels should be the level at what gcses should be taugt at.

> however, in the maths. they studied in the higher classes of Junior school level they did  have to do estimating (????)

I think that the idea of 'estimating' is that they have a rough idea of the answer when using a calculator preventing a stupid answer simply through a slip of the finger!  :)

> i do think that GCSE's are ubish and dont prepear you for teh adult life at all, there are some right thickohs outy there that got As in their GCSEs. and Alevels should be the level at what gcses should be taugt at.

Ahhh Bless you stamboom, you're only 17 and I don't want to burst your bubble, but A-levels do not prepare you for adult life. My A-levels have not taught me how to hold a marriage/family together, how to resolve problems with neighbours, how to be a parent, how to juggle a family & work, how to keep on living when the going get tough or any of the responsibilites that come with being an adult.... but,  I could give an arty-farty spiel about Picassos' refracted period or explain the difference between a homozygous & heterozygous inherited genetic trait ;)

To the OP, it is sad that a teenager needs to use a calculator to do that basic sum, hopefully she only used the calculator becasue she is shy/nervous and wanted to make sure she got it right, rather than through a complete inability to do basic addition (which my 10yr old could manage no probs.).

Some people suffer from dyscalculia - in the same way as some people suffer with dyslexia ;)  (and some get both )  it makes life difficult but can be worked around :)

It would be a poor world if a person was barred from getting a job simply because they had to use a calculator :(   I've no doubt that given plenty of practise - which she is going to get in her job, this young lady will soon improve her skills/confidence and will be able to work things out in her head :)

> i do think that GCSE's are ubish and dont prepear you for teh adult life at all, there are some right thickohs outy there that got As in their GCSEs. and Alevels should be the level at what gcses should be taugt at.

rofl, was this post meant to be ironic or were you just in a rush when you typed it?

i know that but, the stuff in science and maths and english but i do think general studies and the other ..olgies are good.

We didn't get to use calculators for arithmetic but we did in certain parts of maths. We also need Higher English and Maths to get into Uni no matter what subject we wanted to study but my daughter didn't. She was at uni with a guy who couldn't add fractions which to me is fairly simple and I cannot do maths. Mind you we had a maths teacher who taught the wall at the back of the class and after having him for 2 years he still didn't know our names when it came to parents evenings!

>We didn't get to use calculators for arithmetic but we did in certain parts of maths.

Calculators had only just been invented when I was doing maths, and very hugely expensive (about a month's wages) so no chance of any schoolchild having access to one! Makes you wonder how the world could possibly function, doesn't it? ;-) If you were no good at mental arithmetic you stood no chance of getting a job as a shop-girl handling money.

For higher maths (not arithmetic) we used slide rules and log tables.

> For higher maths (not arithmetic) we used slide rules and log tables.

Me too, JG....we are giving our ages away here!  :)

I was shocked that my brother didn't know how to do long division and long multiplication on paper.

Now I cannot do arithmetic very well in my head, I need fingers and paper ;)

Yes we used log tables too! I remember getting my first calculator and yes it was very expensive compared to today's prices. I have a feeling that you could only buy them from electrical stores too.

I often wonder how the world functioned without mobile phones and computers too . lol

I'm actually very relieved that we no longer use log tables - I doubt I could remember how to anymore :-D . We were not allowed to use a calculator in class until we had passed O grade Arithmetic. We used them for Higher maths and Physics though and that was in 1979. Arithmetic is now called 'Numeracy' (which isn't even a word,) and is a core skill in the education system. The Standard Grade maths paper in Scotland (GCSE equivalent) still has a non-calculator paper and a calculator paper though.

A levels and Scottish Highers / Advanced Highers are not intended to prepare you for life - that's what vocational qualifications do, their purpose is to show that you can study academic subjects at that level and hence go further in academia (university normally). Similarly, some university degrees were never intended to prepare you for a job, but to show that you had the capability to study and learn at that level and hence were likely to succeed in a higher level job for which training was then provided.

I remember when I worked as a Saturday girl in Boots many moons ago, a customer chastising me for ringing 20 sheets of wrapping paper through the till separately as she thought I should multiply it in my head and ring through the total. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to as each item had to go through individually :-)

It irritates me when folk reach for calculators for the simplest sums too and I sometimes think its almost an automatic action, but when you don't do sums in your head regularly you do start to lose the ability - it is a case of practice makes perfect :-D :-D

> i do think that GCSE's are ubish and dont prepear you for teh adult life at all, there are some right thickohs outy there that got As in their GCSEs. and Alevels should be the level at what gcses should be taugt

I think that Cheekchow may have meant that you were giving a good example of how 'ubish' the teaching of English is in school today ;) Perhaps you meant that you might otherwise have written:

"I do think that GCSEs are rubbish and don't prepare you for adult life at all. There are some 'right thickohs' out there that got As in their GCSEs and A levels should be the level at which GCSEs are taught" .................

Daisy

oh i know i was replying to another post

Primary school children in my area have to do mental arithmetic :-) Calculators are allowed in some exams and not others - not all children will be a whizz at maths so learning an alternative way to do calculations will sometimes be the only way that some children will be able to work out a maths problem reliably.

IMHO it is better for children who struggle with maths, or have dyscalculia, to be given a strategy to overcome their problem rather than failing to be able to manage the maths that we all need to be able to use to get through our everyday life.

same with what happend to me, but when i went to high school by year 9 it was forgotten

> For higher maths (not arithmetic) we used slide rules and log tables.

going back more years than I care to admit............we used log tables in school but from what I remember you still had to add the numbers together for a total to then use the anti-log table to get the answer.

The girl in my original post said - oh I can't do maths.........!!!

my other thought was how on earth does she know that she is not being ripped of every time she pays for 2 or more items? yes I know you have till rolls etc - but not on my local market you don't.

come on the rest of you pre-decimal people - how many of you worked somewhere like a pub? a round of 8 or 9 drinks to add up, all in £ s, d? I did and it was hard work till you got more practise

>come on the rest of you pre-decimal people - how many of you worked somewhere like a pub?

Not in a pub, but in a shop where the till only registered the total - youhad to add up all the individual items in your head first to arrive at the total, and then work out in your head how much change to give and count it out into the customer's hand, not just passing over a handful of coins saying "there's two-and-sevenpence change madam".

My Mum was an absolute whizz at adding up long columns of figures, especially in £ s d - she worked in the co-op grocers straight after leaving school (at 14), and the skill never left her - she  said a lot of it had to do with getting any shortfall docked form your wages if an error was found!  Talk about incentives to be accurate.

It still happens now. Get it wrong and you personally have to make it up.

> My Mum was an absolute whizz at adding up long columns of figures, especially in £ s d - she worked in the co-op grocers straight after leaving school (at 14), and the skill never left her

My mum was the same! My dad had his own business, mum did all his book keeping and I remember sitting at the table trying to count the columns of figures faster than she did! I never beat her! lol

My daughter worked in a restaurant/bar for a number of years and they didn't even have to know the prices as the till buttons had the particular drinks or food items on them. At least in the good old days before the fancy tills you had to think about the numbers you were adding up.

To be honest I'm not sure generally that things are a lot worse than when I was at school many many years ago before claculators were used :).  I used to have a saturday / holiday job in a sports shop, the shop had one till and it didn't calculate change, the best job was to be on the till as you got to sit down and avoid most of the tidying up.  When I was in the manager used to put me on the till most of the time because the full time staff (most of whom were people who had left school at 16) used to make too many mistakes.

My daughters (17 and 14) both go to the local grammar school, both are good at basic maths despite the fact that calculators are used(neither of them actually like maths).

> but i know from my sons that this is allowed these days. such i shame that they don't expect children to be able to work out basic maths in their heads anymore.

To those of you that are 'appauled' that calculators are allowed into exams i would challenge any of you to answer the exam paper without one. Calculators are only used on one half of the GCSE maths exam. There are 2  1& 1/2 hour papers, one allows the use of a calculator and one doesnt. Obviously the paper that doesnt allow a calculator is testing the candidates use of more basic maths where as the other paper is testing algebra, angles etc and couldnt be done without the assistance of one. Calculators are needed to work out lots of things and it is important that youngsters are taught how to use one properly. Although i agree, we need to encourage them to do mental arithmatic and work out basic maths on their own too
(I speak from experience as an exams officer)

>where as the other paper is testing algebra, angles etc and couldnt be done without the assistance of one.

Eh? How on earth do you think we managed algebra and geometry before calculators existed?

My OH used to be able to calculate the strengths/weights etc required on steel bridges without the use of calculators/computers......the only tool he used (apart from basic maths) was a slide rule!

I know the days are long-gone when multiplication tables were learned by heart (we used to spend the last 15 minutes of the day when I was in the top class of juniors, rattling through the tables from 2-12 - as soon as we'd reached 12 x 12 = 144 - we could go!!!).   But once learned, they don't disappear from your brain and I can as quickly calculate something in my head as use a calculator.

When our children wanted to have calculators, they had to prove to us that they had learned their 7, 8 & 9 times tables first - then they got them.   

If children don't learn to use their brains first - what happens when they can't find a calculator?????

> what happens when they can't find a calculator?????

or the battery has gone flat :-O

my brain feels like it running on half power occasionally but my excuse is 'a senior moment' but so far it hasn't gone completely flat.........or not that Iv'e noticed :-D
Chris

> I know the days are long-gone when multiplication tables were learned by heart

They still do, at least they did at my daughters' primary school :-D, the only difference is that they only go up to the 10 times table - decimalisation got rid of 11 and 12 it seems :-D

Hopefully some of these Brain Training programs will encourage children to keep at the mental arithmetic after they start using calculators!

> come on the rest of you pre-decimal people - how many of you worked somewhere like a pub? a round of 8 or 9 drinks to add up, all in £ s, d? I did and it was hard work till you got more practise <IMG class=qButton title="Quote selected text" alt="Quote selected text" src="/images/mi_quote.gif" width=20 height=10>

I did - I worked in a pub that was on a "charabanc" route to Southend illuminations - so would have one person coming in, ordering about 15 drinks - black & tan, p & l, large light, small whisky, 3 babychams etc - and I'd have to serve them, give them the correct price AND the right change - or there would be blood on the sawdust (mine!)

I also worked in a 10-form entry comprehensive school (ie 300 children per year)  as Administrator during the transition from £sd to decimal ....when school dinners went from 1s10d per day to 9p per day .....but if someone bought 1 week's tickets the price would be 45p ...whereas 1s10d x 5 converted out to 46p.........and lived to tell the tale!

same with what happend to me, but when i went to high school by year 9 it was forgotten

Why do you think you forgot everything so quickly stamboom?

i didnt for get they forgot to teach it!

>>where as the other paper is testing algebra, angles etc and couldnt be done without the assistance of one.

>Eh? How on earth do you think we managed algebra and geometry before calculators existed?

The maths was easier, I wasn't allowed to use a calculator in my maths O Level, they were allowed a few years later and I saw a paper and was supprised at how much harder it was or would have been if you had to do it with out a calculator.  It wasn't that I had forgotten the maths, I was halfway through a computing degree that involved quite a bit of maths.

Of course whether the exams have now been dumbed down is a different topic.

>The maths was easier

So the ancient Greeks, who 'invented' algebra and geometry, used calculators? Come off it! :-D

>I saw a paper and was supprised at how much harder it was or would have been if you had to do it with out a calculator

Do you remember (early 90s I believe - it was in all the newspapers) when a question from a 1975 O-level maths exam was included in the A-level GCSE maths?

Perhaps badly put - the calculations used to come to the answer in an o-level were more complicated when a calculator was allowed.

As to the dumbing down of exams since the 1970s / early 80s (my o-level was in 77), I tend to agree.  I did an AS in Classical Civilisations a couple of years ago and I must admit I was supprised at how easy it was, but that could be that I am older and have more experiance than when I originally took my a-levels in 1980

> Do you remember (early 90s I believe - it was in all the newspapers) when a question from a 1975 O-level maths exam was included in the A-level GCSE maths

I did Pure and Applied Mathematics at A Level in 1973. My son did Mathematics and Further Mathematics A Levels in 2001 with both at A grade. He has looked at my examination papers some while ago and agreed that my questions were more difficult :) :)

JG - I too used a slide rule at school :) :) We had to purchase one when we started at the school aged 11 :) :) I didn't have a calculator until about 1975 when my father bought me one secondhand :) :) So, like you, managed two A level maths without one :) :)

Daisy

My parents had me quite late on in life (I have older siblings), and my Mum used to make me recite the times tables on the way to, and from school. As you say - they never leave you.

Listening to the radio a couple of weeks ago, the presenters were discussing times tables, and that 7's and 9's were particularly difficult for them. They were put on the spot with a "what's 7 x 9?" question, and I was amazed they had to go through the 9 times table from the start before they reached the answer.