My God I'm so fucking sick of conservatives ranting about "New Math" or "Common Core Math" as though the "good ol' fashioned cipherin'" they think is so important to teach kids isn't the *least relevant part of mathematical education by far*
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It has never, in history, been less important to be able to recite your times tables It has never, in history, been less important to be able to take out a piece of paper and perform long division by hand
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Even in the olden days before everyone was carrying a powerful computer with them in their pocket everywhere they went "Math errors" as the result of *conceptual* errors were far more common and damaging than actual arithmetic flubs
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Forgetting to carry the 1 while multiplying two numbers gets you a wrong answer within the same order of magnitude as the right answer Multiplying the *wrong two numbers* is a far more consequential mistake
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And the best way to build a foundation to avoid such errors is to start off teaching children to THINK To understand that mathematics, including even simple arithmetic, is a CONSTRUCTED TOOL Which is what all that newfangled nonsense about set theory and whatnot is about
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Replying to @arthur_affect @perdricof
That CONSTRUCTED TOOL creates a meaningful SHARED UNDERSTANDING
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Also: if you have this many sticks: || and I give you this many sticks || you have this many sticks |||| and it’s a good thing we have the consistently used signifiers of 2 and 4 to communicate that.
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Replying to @Aya62335284 @perdricof
It is useful, but that use has sharp limits, and a smart person is someone who must constantly be thinking about those limits What if I break a stick in half and then trade it for two of your sticks
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Replying to @arthur_affect @perdricof
We’re not having a conversation here about the development of a “smart person” we’re talking about consistent shared understanding among a general public.
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A general public will understand that a stick broken in half is half a stick.
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They might or they might not What if I found them like that and they're just smaller sticks
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