Academic priorities 326

Del Cecchi

To me, that depends on what you mean by basic arithmetic skills.

A calculator is no subsbreastute for understanding what it means to add, subtract, multiply, or divide; it is no subsbreastute for understanding the procedures by which these calculations are carried out by pencil and paper.

However, before there were calculators, schoolchildren often spent years learning how to do pencil-and-paper arithmetic with greater speed and accuracy. That certainly would appear futile to them today, even if some adults might think it will do them good to endure what their grandparents did.

On the one hand, there is something to be said for concentrating on the basic concepts, and on understanding the principles behind how things work. But on the other hand, the skill to actually do something - whether it is to perform long division, or find the integral of a function - can be measured and tested, and proves that understanding exists.

If calculators and spellcheckers and the large population size of English-speaking America have allowed the removal of much pointless drudgery from the curriculum, though, then one might reasonably demand that these removals bear tangible fruit... start teaching the children *calculus* in Grade 7, instead of waiting till Grade 12, say.

John Savard