Here we go again! Oh those terrible calculators that turn our student's
heads to mush if we put them in their hands before they completely finish
their apprenticeship of years and years of pencil and paper tedious
calculations and endless pencils whittled to nub in the process. We are
long past due figuring out how to teach number sense while at the same time
tackling real-life challenging problems--not just teaching calculations over
and over and over and over and louder and louder and louder until students
earn the right to get to the good stuff. The problem is most of them never
get to the good stuff so they do not see the point in the calculations over
and over and over and over so they do not apply themselves and develop a
number sense by doing the repeated calculations.
Here is a way to have adults learn multilpication tables. By the way if
they do not know them as adults memorization has not worked so maybe another
tact would be better. Have them represent 8 x 5, for example with 5 rows of
8 poker chips each. First watch and see how many of them are surprised to
learn that 8 x 5 means 8 things 5 times. Next have them move 2 of the poker
chips from the bottom row to the top row, 2 to the second row, and so forth
until they have the poker chips arranged in 4 rows of 10 each. In the past
they have been asked to memorize the multiplication tables--but they have
not been asked to know what multiplication means. There is a big
difference.
I was talking to a 60-year old man a couple of weeks ago who said he was
taking GED classes. He was very articulate and apparently well read and
educated from reading. I asked him how he was in math and he said that was
his big problem. I asked him if he knew his multiplication tables. He said
he was never able to learn them. I showed him the poker chips and he
calculated several products and was amazed that he could figure it out. By
the way, he went to Catholic school and was hit on the hand when he could
not do arithmetic. The good old days of education did not serve him well.
Martha
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