https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48395840
and ultimately this about a successful experiment in other approaches to maths:
I think sibling comments are taking issue with `learn multiplication tables` versus `memorize multiplication tables`. I find no value in the latter in kids but incredible value in the former.
What I'm teaching my homeschoolers is to instead be able to quickly derive the table from the "easy" ones. Everyone practices counting by twos, fives, and tens at an earlier stage of math. So when multiplication tables come around, if you can fill 2s,5s, and 10s out easily, then any other thing you need is (usually) just one simple addition or subtraction operation away.
I do it this way for the same reason I'm against learning "tricks" like FOIL ( first-outer-inner-last) for binomial multiplication. You end up learning the narrow-scoped trick or you end up learning the table, and not a framework by which to solve problems of a broad class.
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I've seen entirely too many kids who memorize the table up to 10x10 and then are totally stunlocked at 11x11.
A better analogy would be "why stop memorising long works now we can read things instead". No one memorises epic poems anymore but we read novel instead.
A multiplication table is just a single-digit multiplication vocabulary.
Kids will learn anything that gives them social standing or self-worth in another way, whatever it takes to be a cool kid.
"nerds" would disagree with you. I think the point that OP was trying to make is the three groups are dynamic based on the topic. So the groups are not the same for biology, maths and for literature.
It’s exceptionally rare to encounter any person, adult or otherwise, that genuinely holds no value in any opinion of another. And even those people hold to their own self evaluations which do not spawn from pure noise.
Which is exactly why they stopped teaching them in US curriculum under No Child Left Behind.
https://www.thewellnews.com/opinions/california-removes-memo...