4th February 2010 9:00
By Blue Tutors
School life is very different now compared to 50 years ago, and I think that many of the changes have been overwhelmingly positive. However, after only a year of tutoring maths in London, I realised that there is a negative change which has happened so rapidly that its effect is apparent compared to 15 years ago. This is the loss of basic arithmetic skills.
I think that most people know how times tables were traditionally learnt; reciting and remembering each multiplication as a fact was seen as an important skill. I was actually taught in a similar way, and although I’m generally against that kind of rote learning, I have to say that it’s never done me any harm, and I can still answer most simple multiplications almost instantly.
However, these basic skills: simple addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, seem, at least to me, to have virtually disappeared from our school students. I was once teaching Maths to an A-level student, and at one stage they had to multiply 300 by 2, and they took out their calculator. When I asked why, the response was to be sure that the answer was correct. The student didn’t seem to care when I pointed out that using a calculator took them 5-10 seconds, whereas it would take half a second, if that, to work it out in their head.
I suppose that the main cause of the problem is technology. While I wouldn’t want to be using logarithm tables anymore, I do think that a certain amount of mental arithmetic is a good thing, but it’s difficult for a teacher to explain this to a student when a calculator is right in front of them. The student could justifiably ask “what’s the point of doing it in my head?” I’m not sure that I could give an answer that the student would care about.
My concern is that there is no way back to the pre-calculator days of even 25 years ago, mainly because many of our teachers were students taught with the aid of a calculator, and it’s become self-perpetuating; if someone never realised the importance of mental arithmetic them self, then they’re unlikely to instil it in their students.
Why is it still important for all of us to have a basic grasp of arithmetic? There are obvious reasons, such as checking your change in a shop, or working out what that mobile phone contract (or that mortgage) will actually cost you; can it be a coincidence that national debt has never been higher, and the standard of maths never lower? Also, so many jobs today require employees to think on their feet, and make quick calculations in their head, particularly jobs in the finance sector, which is where more and more young people would like to find themselves. The most important reason for me is simply to develop a deeper understanding of maths. I did a maths degree, and genuinely believe that a deep understanding of the first principles of numbers and the way they interact set me en-route to my eventual area of study. My worry is not that we’ll stop producing any great scientists, but I think the onus will now be on children to take an interest in something at a young age, and practise it more than their teachers encourage them to. I think that this is a real shame, because we may end up stunting the growth of students from a very early age.