Are our kids learning to think quicker?
October 22, 2008
I have just been helping my nine year old daughter with her math’s homework and i am constantly amazed at what she is learning. Gone are the days that every addition or multiplication is worked out in long hand in a detailed, step by step process.
The new way seems to be that if you can get to the correct answer as quickly as you can then so much the better. For example, if you are taking away 18 from 80 the new, short way would be to take away 20 then add two (80–20+2=62). This quick fire way of working out the answer is faster, more accurate and i suspect more fun. It also gives students a better feel for numbers and the relationships between them. As my daughter comments when she is doing her homework, this answer does not feel right so she can quickly redo the work and correct any mistakes.
Is this the way of the future? Is this new way of teaching math’s the way we should be teaching all other subjects? Perhaps teachers and parents are more comfortable with this new way of thinking because there is a single correct answer. You can either do it the fast or slow way but there is only one single correct answer. Yet with most problems at school and indeed in life there is never the one correct answer so there is a continuing belied that somehow the slower we go the better off we will be.
My proposition is that our kids are showing us the way. They are learning to think quicker because it is a better way to adapt and respond to a broadband-paced world. Perhaps it is us adults that need to learn from our kids in this regard?
What do you think?
Yours in Speed, Dr. Ken Hudson
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