Are you smarter than a 4th grader?

Void · Oct 30, 2019

Mist said:
No, that's the exact opposite of what I'm saying.

What I'm saying is that by forcing you to memorize them by default you were robbed of the chance to learn to think about multiplication in a more intuitive way.

You might think you are saying the opposite, but you're not. Everything you are saying in these sentences is based upon the assumption that all of us that memorized our multiplication tables were never given the chance to understand it first. Why are you making this assumption? Why are you assuming that everyone that teaches memorization (today or in the past) skips the concept parts and only teaches memorization?

Your argument might appear one way in your head, but go back and read the first post I responded to and this very one here as well. Every time you equated memorization with not being given "the chance to learn to think about multiplication in a more intuitive way." Which is not only a baseless assumption, but also immediately puts the rest of us in a lesser category (in your eyes) because you supposedly learned how to visualize rows of rabbits all by yourself, because you're so much smarter than the rest of us. You might not intend for it to sound like I just stated it, but that's how you are coming across.

Just from the responses here, I can assure you that almost everyone here, even Lendarios, was taught the theory behind multiplication ALONG WITH memorizing them after the fact. Why is this so hard for you to understand and accept?

Sanrith Descartes · Oct 30, 2019

Memorization and theory are both tools and need to be done together. As a father of a 12 year old with learning disabilities that impare her ability to memorize, learning math is a challenge. Yes, she has a calculator, but memorization is crucial. At a certain point with memorization as soon as you see a written problem the fast part of your brain (see Kahneman's 'thinking fast and slow') has already processed the parts it can solve from what has been memorized. Seeing a written problem of 5×5=x , you're brain has already processed it as 25=x.

Animale · Oct 30, 2019

Aldarion said:
You know what you can test? Whether the student gets the right answer. Make it a quick test, and it has to be done by memorization.

Voila - just like that, by focusing on what can actually be tested, we are back to training people to use their brains. And people won't have to rely on a thousand dollar gadget to do a second grade calculation.

As someone with a PhD in the experimental sciences and who uses math every day (chemistry), this approach results in uncreative engineers who are unable to be creative by making unexpected connections. The cutting edge scientific problems are those where the answer isn’t known, and testing memorization ability removes folks who can use their mind.

I understand your reticence, but your arguments read a bit “walked to school in the snow” to me. Go back and compare textbooks from the 80s to now and tell me they were better then. In my field at least the old textbooks are typically painfully opaque and not helpful for learning.

LachiusTZ · Oct 30, 2019

Animale said:
As someone with a PhD in the experimental sciences and who uses math every day (chemistry), this approach results in uncreative engineers who are unable to be creative by making unexpected connections. The cutting edge scientific problems are those where the answer isn’t known, and testing memorization ability removes folks who can use their mind.

I understand your reticence, but your arguments read a bit “walked to school in the snow” to me. Go back and compare textbooks from the 80s to now and tell me they were better then. In my field at least the old textbooks are typically painfully opaque and not helpful for learning.

I'm sure you and Dr Sadre are just days away from saving humanity.

wormie · Oct 30, 2019

Animale said:
As someone with a PhD in the experimental sciences and who uses math every day (chemistry), this approach results in uncreative engineers who are unable to be creative by making unexpected connections. The cutting edge scientific problems are those where the answer isn’t known, and testing memorization ability removes folks who can use their mind.

I understand your reticence, but your arguments read a bit “walked to school in the snow” to me. Go back and compare textbooks from the 80s to now and tell me they were better then. In my field at least the old textbooks are typically painfully opaque and not helpful for learning.

Engineers are not creative by definition

Also since you are a chem guy I would just like to say "Fuck you and your orgo" to you. Kthnx.

Seananigans · Oct 30, 2019

Animale said:
As someone with a PhD in the experimental sciences and who uses math every day (chemistry), this approach results in uncreative engineers who are unable to be creative by making unexpected connections. The cutting edge scientific problems are those where the answer isn’t known, and testing memorization ability removes folks who can use their mind.

I understand your reticence, but your arguments read a bit “walked to school in the snow” to me. Go back and compare textbooks from the 80s to now and tell me they were better then. In my field at least the old textbooks are typically painfully opaque and not helpful for learning.

Quit making diversity hires then. Your specific field should naturally attract the sorts of people who will get to that point on their own, as I and many, many others did (I'm one of those who was bored to fucking tears in HS, and reached intuitive understanding of math mechanics on my own). If it's not attracting them on its own, get better at recruiting.

This complete scrapping of proven methods for unproven methods is part of what's fucking up this country's education system. At the very least, KEEP the proven shit while you add a bit of new and see how it works. It's proven, for fuck's sake. How else did we even get here in the first place?

Siddar · Oct 30, 2019

I wonder about exactly what people mean by memorization here?

Many seem to be saying that they mean memorizing the exact answer to every question. While most on the otherside seem to be of a more expansive view of what memorization entails. They're focused on a broader definition of the times table as a tool instead of individual specific answers to a single multiplication problem.

I view times table as a guide to finding the right answer not as a individual answer that have to memorized. It is very useful to me in the way I use it and most likely to others as well. I find that if I ask a ten year old about times table that they haven't even heard of a times table to be baffling.

Animale · Oct 30, 2019

Seananigans said:
Quit making diversity hires then. Your specific field should naturally attract the sorts of people who will get to that point on their own, as I and many, many others did (I'm one of those who was bored to fucking tears in HS, and reached intuitive understanding of math mechanics on my own). If it's not attracting them on its own, get better at recruiting.

This complete scrapping of proven methods for unproven methods is part of what's fucking up this country's education system. At the very least, KEEP the proven shit while you add a bit of new and see how it works. It's proven, for fuck's sake. How else did we even get here in the first place?

Diversity what now? Where’d that come from?!?

Thing is, the proven methods to date have created a single recipe for success. That recipe doesn’t always work across all fields, and having a wider range of understanding and experience is essential for high end research. Engineers are an important part, but scientists need to be that as well. Having a monolithic type is how we end up being US auto industry is the 80s.

zombiewizardhawk · Oct 30, 2019

Hi guys, I'm new around these parts but I have a PhD and am super smart. I do experimental science and memorizing multiplication tables is worthless in my field! I was taught math by these methods when I was a kid and you all were learning the old fashioned way and that's how I got to where I am.

PS: Memorizing what numbers are is for stupid people, too. 3+3 doesn't always equal 6!

Mist · Oct 30, 2019

Void said:
You might think you are saying the opposite, but you're not.

You seem content to argue with what you want to think I said rather than what I actually said, so I'm going to let you continue to argue with yourself.

However, it's not controversial to say that some students are smarter than others, and the relationship in intelligence is not linear either.

Does anyone here actually remember being back in math class? There were the kids that did all sorts of math out on sheets of scratch paper to arrive at the solution, others who just had to write down a few parts of the operations, and others who just do it all in their head, turned the test in 5 minutes after they got it and went back to reading their D&D books. And then there's the

zombiewizardhawk s of the world who were sitting in the corner drawing silly cracked out methhead faces and then eating the paper.

Not everyone is operating on the same level at all, especially when it comes to something as directly correlated to IQ as math (or reading comprehension, as evidenced by this thread.) The smartest students, once shown the basics of how numbers work, will figure out the rest of arithmetic all the way up through basic algebra on their own with very little further instruction. Others will have to be taught various schema for fitting numbers and operations into various mental slots so they can perform them quickly enough to get through a test in allotted time. Others won't grasp any of these methods at all.

There are all sorts of levels of math students and teaching them all just to memorize the multiplication tables is fucking stupid, because all one-size fits all solutions are stupid but especially in education.

(Has anyone noticed that every discussion on these forums, regardless of the topic, always follows the same pattern and its always with the same people playing the same parts? Is anyone else as tired of this shit as I am?)

Mist · Oct 30, 2019

Void said:
Every time you equated memorization with not being given "the chance to learn to think about multiplication in a more intuitive way." Which is not only a baseless assumption, but also immediately puts the rest of us in a lesser category (in your eyes) because you supposedly learned how to visualize rows of rabbits all by yourself, because you're so much smarter than the rest of us. You might not intend for it to sound like I just stated it, but that's how you are coming across.

Only on FOH: There are large racial differences in IQ but all internet users on an MMO-and-titty-posting-forum have basically the same IQ.

Mist · Oct 30, 2019

Lendarios said:
ITT: people who can't memorize say memorization is dumb.

Let me hit you with some facts:

Computers were invented by people who really, really loved math but hated the work of actually grinding out mathematically calculations.

Before the proliferation of digital computers, at every major university and scientific endeavor, there was a room full of mostly women doing all the calculations while the smart guys sat around thinking and scribbling about interesting mathematically interactions, because actually doing the calculations was so far beneath them. The people in the room doing the mathematical operations were called computers. Computer (job description) - Wikipedia

People who really 'get' math have a completely different mental model of math from the average person, or even above average people who are really good at doing mathematically operations.

wormie · Oct 30, 2019

Mist said:
Only on FOH: There are large racial differences in IQ but all internet users on an MMO-and-titty-posting-forum have basically the same IQ.

Selection bias? I do daresay that the methhead line cook with outstanding warrants giving advice on education is pants on head retarded but otherwise, most peoples opinions aren't total shit.

Mist said:
Let me hit you with some facts:

Computers were invented by people who really, really loved math but hated the work of actually grinding out mathematically calculations.

Before the proliferation of digital computers, at every major university and scientific endeavor, there was a room full of mostly women doing all the calculations while the smart guys sat around thinking and scribbling about interesting mathematically interactions, because actually doing the calculations was so far beneath them. The people in the room doing the mathematical operations were called computers. Computer (job description) - Wikipedia

People who really 'get' math have a completely different mental model of math from the average person, or even above average people who are really good at doing mathematically operations.

That openening sentence is silly. Lovelace, Babbage, Turing, Church...none of them looked for ways to define computation because they didn't want to do computation by hand. And neither did those that followed.

Mist · Oct 30, 2019

Aldarion said:
Make it a quick test, and it has to be done by memorization.

Citation needed.

Further, being able to quickly recall things from memorization is not a test of intelligence or understanding.

For instance, average chimps have super-human levels of memorization ability. This is a scientifically testable fact that we have known for over a decade now.

You could literally get a very average chimp to memorize the multiplication tables given the correct behavioral conditioning. That does not mean those chimps then understand math.

The purpose of these teaching kids using these methods is to get them to actually understand math and not just be less-smart versions of chimps.

Mist · Oct 30, 2019

wormie said:
That openening sentence is silly. Lovelace, Babbage, Turing, Church...none of them looked for ways to define computation because they didn't want to do computation by hand. And neither did those that followed.

Just plain wrong. The whole point of Turing's concept of a universal computing machine was to build a machine that could be configured to solve any computable math problem so mathematicians could get back to the study of doing interesting things with numbers. He wrote specifically about this.

wormie · Oct 30, 2019

Mist said:
Just plain wrong. The whole point of Turing's concept of a universal computing machine was to build a machine that could be configured to solve any computable math problem so mathematicians could get back to the study of doing interesting things with numbers. He wrote specifically about this.

Even if you were right, you aren’t, that makes no sense. Just a post ago you said computers was a job done by people, women specifically, so we know no real mathematician was wasting time on doing computing.

Mist · Oct 30, 2019

wormie said:
Even if you were right, you aren’t, that makes no sense. Just a post ago you said computers was a job done by people, women specifically, so we know no real mathematician was wasting time on doing computing.

Needing a room full of human computers do laborious math put a logistical upper bound on the science and engineering you could do, hence the need for analog computers and eventually digital, programmable computers. The US military and most of the people you mentioned all wrote things to the same effect.

Siddar · Oct 30, 2019

Mist said:
You seem content to argue with what you want to think I said rather than what I actually said, so I'm going to let you continue to argue with yourself.

However, it's not controversial to say that some students are smarter than others, and the relationship in intelligence is not linear either.

Does anyone here actually remember being back in math class? There were the kids that did all sorts of math out on sheets of scratch paper to arrive at the solution, others who just had to write down a few parts of the operations, and others who just do it all in their head, turned the test in 5 minutes after they got it and went back to reading their D&D books. And then there's the zombiewizardhawk s of the world who were sitting in the corner drawing silly cracked out methhead faces and then eating the paper.

Not everyone is operating on the same level at all, especially when it comes to something as directly correlated to IQ as math (or reading comprehension, as evidenced by this thread.) The smartest students, once shown the basics of how numbers work, will figure out the rest of arithmetic all the way up through basic algebra on their own with very little further instruction. Others will have to be taught various schema for fitting numbers and operations into various mental slots so they can perform them quickly enough to get through a test in allotted time. Others won't grasp any of these methods at all.

There are all sorts of levels of math students and teaching them all just to memorize the multiplication tables is fucking stupid, because all one-size fits all solutions are stupid but especially in education.

(Has anyone noticed that every discussion on these forums, regardless of the topic, always follows the same pattern and its always with the same people playing the same parts? Is anyone else as tired of this shit as I am?)

You a partially right in that there are different levels that people operate at mathematically. But wrong in your conclusion that the time table are useless. 8 x 9 you may already know the answer on unthinking level, you may have a shortcut to get the answer say by raising the question to 8 x 10 - 8, are you may have instead learned a specific answer that you keep in memory.

Of those three methods two rely on time tables and taking it away from them wont suddenly make them under stand 8 x 9 on a unthinking level.

zombiewizardhawk · Oct 30, 2019

Mist said:
and others who just do it all in their head, turned the test in 5 minutes after they got it and went back to reading their D&D books. And then there's the zombiewizardhawk s of the world who were sitting in the corner drawing silly cracked out methhead faces and then eating the paper.

I was one of those do it in my head and then go back to reading my books kids. Sometimes I lost points for not showing every single tiny step of the process but only in a couple classes where the teachers were dicks about it. I finished chemistry with a 109% and algebra 2 with somewhere around 140-150% because the classes had extra credit questions on everything including the midterms and finals.... Also, paper is disgusting. It doesn't taste good and is hard to chew.

Mist · Oct 30, 2019

Aldarion said:
You know what you can test? Whether the student gets the right answer. Make it a quick test, and it has to be done by memorization.

Siddar said:
You a partially right in that there are different levels that people operate at mathematically. But wrong in your conclusion that the time table are useless. 8 x 9 you may already know the answer on unthinking level, you may have a shortcut to get the answer say by raising the question to 8 x 10 - 8, are you may have instead learned a specific answer that you keep in memory.

Of those three methods two rely on time tables and taking it away from them wont suddenly make them under stand 8 x 9 on a unthinking level.

Just because I'm fired up about this now, here's how to learn how to pass a 3rd grade multiplication test up to 12x12 with very little memorization, the way I taught myself.

2s and 3s and 10s tables - simple, if you can't just do this in your head automatically you're below 90 IQ.
4s - just double the 2s.
5s - x10 and divide in half.
12s - Practice counting by dozens in your head until you memorize it backwards and forwards.
6s - You just memorized counting by dozens so just divide those in half. Or you could double the threes.
7s - 7x2 through 7x5 should be easy for you from the lines above, just memorize 7x6, 7x7, and 7x8 for expediency.
8s - Just like the 4s except double again.
9s - Algorithmic, subtract 1 to get the first digit then the first + second digit always add up to 9.
11s - You only have to memorize 11x11 = 121, because the rest are just a pattern, 11, 22, 33, etc, and 121 is still a palindrome.

Now, this does rely on being able to quickly half and double numbers in your head but smart people just do this automatically and less smart people could practice this particular skill via hand calculation and/or memorization rather than practicing the entire table.

You've cut the things you have to memorize down from a whole table to 4 individual items + counting by dozens.

Are you smarter than a 4th grader?

Experiencer

Veteran of a thousand threadban wars

Trakanon Raider

Rogue Deathwalker Box

Asshat wormie

2023 Asshat Award Winner

Potato del Grande

Bronze Baronet of the Realm

Trakanon Raider

Potato del Grande

Eeyore Enthusiast

Eeyore Enthusiast

Eeyore Enthusiast

Asshat wormie

2023 Asshat Award Winner

Eeyore Enthusiast

Eeyore Enthusiast

Asshat wormie

2023 Asshat Award Winner

Eeyore Enthusiast

Bronze Baronet of the Realm

Potato del Grande

Eeyore Enthusiast