Change Matters

Grocery Clerk: Your total is $125.42.
Me: I'd like to write a check for $30 over.
Grocery Clerk (looking uncomfortable): Let me get a calculator...

As we move closer and closer to Idiocracy, I ask myself, "When did we start to go off the rails?"

I blame New Math.

For those of you who grew up in my age bracket (you know who you are), you probably remember the birth of New Math. This was when we had to start circling pictures of objects to put them into "sets". It was the advent of "Base 8."  All of it was supposed to make it easier to teach math to children. It was convoluted and, to this day, I don't understand the point of it.

For the most part, New Math is just a bad aftertaste, left in the mouth of a generation of Baby Boomers. But, somehow, I think that bad taste translated into an overall lack of common sense in teaching the next generation.

These days, public school students have to pass a proficiency test. Since I haven't taken one, I can only rely on what frustrated teachers are saying about them -- that kids aren't really learning much, that they are memorizing facts and figures just so they can spew them back, pass the test, and move along into the real world, where they will be someone else's problem. ("Let me get a calculator.")

We seem to have lost the ability to make education relevant. How to balance a checkbook. How to make change. How to figure out what that shirt is going to cost after the additional 40% off.

And, of course, how to know if 16 mega sized rolls of toilet paper at $17.99 is a better deal than 24 large sized rolls of toilet paper for $12.99. (I confess, I do need a calculator, or at least a piece of paper to figure this out.) Most people don't bother to work it out. When I'm in a hurry, I admit that I don't either. This is what "the man" is counting on. You not counting.

We need to get smarter. And we need to start by teaching our kids how to think.

When my son was much younger and struggling with his seven times table, my husband told him, "That's easy. Sevens are touchdowns with the extra point. What is your score if you have three touchdowns?" My son replied immediately, "21!"

Now, that's math you can use.