But I think learning times tables by rote up to 12 x 12 is the wrong place to start!

"kay" wrote in message
...[i]

Bill Grey;911046 Wrote:
"kay" wrote in message
...


I'd happily settle for less ability to multiply numbers together in
ones
head in exchange for greater understanding of what the numbers
actually
say, and therefore a greater ability to separate scientific argument
from opinion and quackery.


But one has to start somewhere!


But I think learning times tables by rote up to 12 x 12 is the wrong
place to start!




--
kay

You are entitled to your opinion, I happen to disagree.

Best wishes

Bill

"Bill Grey" wrote in message
...[i]

"kay" wrote in message
...

Bill Grey;911046 Wrote:
"kay" wrote in message
...


I'd happily settle for less ability to multiply numbers together in
ones
head in exchange for greater understanding of what the numbers
actually
say, and therefore a greater ability to separate scientific argument
from opinion and quackery.


But one has to start somewhere!


But I think learning times tables by rote up to 12 x 12 is the wrong
place to start!




--
kay

You are entitled to your opinion, I happen to disagree.

Best wishes

Bill


Agree with you Bill.

Funny that my eldest daughter who learnt the tables by rote passed the 11+
and went on to Uni, but the others had their education buggered about with
and didn't.

If it aint broke ..................

Mike


--

....................................
Don't take life too seriously, you'll never get out alive
....................................

kay wrote:[i]
Bill Grey;911046 Wrote:
"kay" wrote in message
...


I'd happily settle for less ability to multiply numbers together in
ones
head in exchange for greater understanding of what the numbers
actually
say, and therefore a greater ability to separate scientific argument
from opinion and quackery.


But one has to start somewhere!


But I think learning times tables by rote up to 12 x 12 is the wrong
place to start!

And as someone who did so, I think it's the right place to start.

--
Rusty

Sacha wrote:[i]
On 2011-01-30 15:54:34 +0000, Rusty Hinge
said:

kay wrote:
Bill Grey;911046 Wrote:
"kay" wrote in message
...


I'd happily settle for less ability to multiply numbers together in
ones
head in exchange for greater understanding of what the numbers
actually
say, and therefore a greater ability to separate scientific argument
from opinion and quackery.


But one has to start somewhere!


But I think learning times tables by rote up to 12 x 12 is the wrong
place to start!

And as someone who did so, I think it's the right place to start.

Hear, hear. But Kay's younger than me so we probably look at things
rather differently.

She must be older than I then, TAAAW.

*I* unforget some of the songs we sang at school - the ones telling that
naughty Mr. Hitler what to do.

And it's next best to certain that I saw operational, one of the present
Battle of Britain Flight's Spitfires - it spent all its (wartime) flying
life at RAF Hornchurch, and I lived in that vicinity a year before it
flew off the line.

--
Rusty

"Rusty Hinge" wrote in message
...[i]
Sacha wrote:
On 2011-01-30 15:54:34 +0000, Rusty Hinge
said:

kay wrote:
Bill Grey;911046 Wrote:
"kay" wrote in message
...


I'd happily settle for less ability to multiply numbers together in
ones
head in exchange for greater understanding of what the numbers
actually
say, and therefore a greater ability to separate scientific argument
from opinion and quackery.


But one has to start somewhere!


But I think learning times tables by rote up to 12 x 12 is the wrong
place to start!

And as someone who did so, I think it's the right place to start.

Hear, hear. But Kay's younger than me so we probably look at things
rather differently.

She must be older than I then, TAAAW.

*I* unforget some of the songs we sang at school - the ones telling that
naughty Mr. Hitler what to do.

And it's next best to certain that I saw operational, one of the present
Battle of Britain Flight's Spitfires - it spent all its (wartime) flying
life at RAF Hornchurch, and I lived in that vicinity a year before it flew
off the line.

--
Rusty

Rusty, did you know that there are 18 operational Spitfires flying in the
World?

We had a good few at Sandown Airport a couple of years back, I think about 7
or 8. Very spectacular when they all took off at once an a couple of
occasions.during the day. We had one do a display a few days ago. We usually
have a display from the BBMF at our day at RAF Cosford.

Mike


--

....................................
Don't take life too seriously, you'll never get out alive
....................................

Sacha wrote:

My husband lived in Essex during the war and he has memories much like
yours. He recalls the vapour trails and rat-a-tat-a-tat. He was born
in 1933 and his (much) older brothers, being in reserved occupations,
were in the fire brigade and went up to London on many, many nights to
fight fires caused by the Blitz. He has several memories of planes over
his rural bit of Essex. You two should meet one day -I'll supply the
amber liquid!

When I was at bawdy school and walking n the Downs (in a crocoodile!)
with the rest of the kids, I unforget seeing a lumpy line of black puffs
of smoke marching across the sky, and a big red flash.

This was followed by the Boom-boom-boom-boo-boo-boom as the Bofors
opened-up in Newhaven-ish, then the
crud-crud-crud-crud-crud-crud-*THUD!* of things going off over the
Channel. I claimed the hit (doodle-bug) for my stepfather-to-be, who was
OIC a battery in Newhaven-ish.

What seemed like five minutes late the sound of the explosion ame
grumpity-bumpity-grOWl-thud-thud-thud, reflected off the French coast.

An early lesson in the speed of sound.

--
Rusty

I'm not sure we're all arguing about the same question. I have no doubt that if you want to instantly be able to multiply two numbers from 1 to 12, rote learning of tables will do the trick.

But I think the time could be better spent. For example, just recently I've seen two newspapers make the same mistake - in the one case, a couple had just had their third child, and all three children had been born on the same date, the chances of which, according to the newspaper, were "an astonishing 48 million to 1".

It would be astonishing if it were true, but the right answer is about 133 thousand to 1.

A trivial mistake - but what when the person making this mistake is a juror in a trial and presented with an equally spurious "probability" of the person in the dock being guilty of the death of their second child cot death, or where evidence is based largely on a probability of DNA matching? It's a bit more important then that people should be confident in handling probabilities. But so few are!

What do you mean by "it worked"?

Do you mean "everybody could multiply relatively small numbers together in their heads" or do you mean"everybody had a good understanding of percentages, differentials, risk and the other concepts that are necessary in order to make decisions in everyday life"?

"kay" wrote in message
...

'Martin[_2_ Wrote:
;911185']On Wed, 26 Jan 2011 16:40:08 +0000, kay
wrote:
-


But I think learning times tables by rote up to 12 x 12 is the wrong
place to start!-

It worked for my generation and they were taught to kids at an age when
they
could memorise stuff by rote quickly.
-

What do you mean by "it worked"?

Do you mean "everybody could multiply relatively small numbers together
in their heads" or do you mean"everybody had a good understanding of
percentages, differentials, risk and the other concepts that are
necessary in order to make decisions in everyday life"?




--
kay

Slow down! slow down, were talkng about children in infant school learning
their times tables /NOT/ percentages, differentials etc. That comes later,
considerably later.

Bill

kay wrote:

What do you mean by "it worked"?

Do you mean "everybody could multiply relatively small numbers together
in their heads" or do you mean"everybody had a good understanding of
percentages, differentials, risk and the other concepts that are
necessary in order to make decisions in everyday life"?

What has that to do with learning your 'times' tables?

--
Rusty

What for you is the purpose of learning times tables by rote? I thought it was to enable one to multiply relatively small numbers together in your head, but I may be missing something.

In article ,
Martin wrote:
On Wed, 26 Jan 2011 22:57:05 +0000, Sacha wrote:
On 2011-01-26 16:40:08 +0000, kay said:

But I think learning times tables by rote up to 12 x 12 is the wrong
place to start!

Worked and continues to work, for me.

The difference between our generation and the young ones, is that we can do
mental arithmetic. Tables are part of the basic tools needed to do this.
Not necessarily. I didn't rely on them and still don't. When my
elder daughter had trouble with her tables, I taught her the methods
I used and said that I didn't give a damn how she got the answer,
provided that she got the right one in under a second. She did,
and got a first-class engineering degree.

There's more than one way to kill a cat.

Nick says people can use a calculator, but I have yet to see anybody doing this
in a supermarket, for example. Our two kids did arithmetic using a calculator
at school. I don't think they even own one nowadays.

If you can't learn tables and can't learn the mathematical tricks,
then any sane person would buy one.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

Nick says people can use a calculator, but I have yet to see anybody
doing this
in a supermarket, for example. Our two kids did arithmetic using a
calculator
at school. I don't think they even own one nowadays.

If you can't learn tables and can't learn the mathematical tricks,
then any sane person would buy one.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

It's no great encumberance to learn the times table at an early age - it can
only help in future years.
There maybe more than one way to skin a cat, but it doesn't hurt to have
more than one string to your bow.

Children at the age that times tables were taught could readily absorb the
information, why deny them such a wonderful experience of learning a
technique that could serve them well in their future
lives.

When you know what things mean mathematically, calculators are fine ( they
save time, and time is money), but, same as GPS they're ok while the
batteries still work.

Bill

Bill Grey wrote:
There maybe more than one way to skin a cat, but it doesn't hurt to have
more than one string to your bow.

Skinning a cat with a bow seems a cruel and unnecessary approach.