Okay…maybe that’s going a bit far, but calculators are something one of my fellow math teachers and I wrestle with constantly. We’re both old school (impressive given that he’s old enough to be my father), and we both believe students will get much farther if they can actually do math rather than rely a calculator. When students ask for a calculator, we’ll both tell them no unless they’re working with big, unusual numbers.
My favorite are the kids who ask for a calculator to work with fractions. I always look at them and ask them how they’re going to get the answer back in fraction form and make it clear that the only answer I’ll accept is the fraction, not the equivalent decimal. They grumble, but they get the work done.
I came across a link I’m going to have to share with Jim, though. After a very funny conversation between the two of us and two students, he must read this post! Basically, a student was working on long division homework, but he couldn’t remember the process. Jim started to go over it with him, and the student I was working with piped up, “I have an easy way to do long division.”
“Oh?” I asked.
He grinned, “Yeah, it’s called the TI-83.” Jim and I both moaned and started into why students shouldn’t rely on calculators.
There’s always the point the article makes- calculators are helpful to those who understand the basic math concepts and know what to enter when, but another problem we’re discovering is that different companies program calculators differently. You not only have to know what to enter when, but you also have to know what to expect so you can evaluate the usability of the answer you receive.
Calculators are not the easy way out of math. They’re a tool to help you with more difficult math tasks!
