Millennial math

[gwpercle]

Don't get me started.

I used to be on the board of our local credit union. Not long ago I went in to transact some business and the very young girl behind the counter was new to me. There was some writing involved in whatever I was doing and when I handed the paperwork to her, her face went blank. She told me, and I quote, "that looks like chicken scratching to me, I can't read any of it." Now, I have a very tidy handwriting and have been complimented on it all my life so I was taken aback. I asked the young lady what she couldn't read and she said none of it, "we weren't taught to read or write cursive" Had to have been an imported college student from some city somewhere because they still teach it locally. She got one of the other girls and we finished up. Next time I was in she was no longer there....and I had nothing to do with her being fired but she had no business working there. I often wonder how her math skills were?

LIKE

Gary

[Winger Ed.]

I love those $2 bills. I hand them out at the gentleman’s club. In the low light the dances think that they are 20s and they treat me like a king.

Shame on you!

They don't even pay those girls enough to buy clothes--- and you're tricking them like that.

[Bmi48219]

The problem, from my perspective, started 30 some years ago. Our older daughter is 42. When she entered 7th grade each kid was given a calculator. The math teacher explained to us parents that kids no longer would need to know math; they just needed to know how to use a calculator. Her reasoning was there would always be calculators so why waste the time teaching them the basics.
Nearly fifty years ago HP came out with a calculator that would do complicated mathematical functions. They retailed for $500.00 and if you could afford one, assignments were a substantially easier. Unfortunately the proud owners discovered they weren’t allowed in classes or for taking tests.

[imashooter2]

Yesterday while I was out and about running some errands I stopped in to throw some gas in the truck for the week. It’s a fairly large chain with a red logo and I’m in there at least twice a week to fill the cars as it’s convenient and the fuel seems to be good quality. I guesstimated about $70 which I pulled out and counted twice while I was in the line waiting for my turn to pay. When I got to the cashier I handed her the stack of bills which consisted of three twenties, one five and five ones and told her how much I was paying. Being a “regular” at the station it was evident she was relatively new. She fanned out the bills and tapped each one with her thumb. She then laid them out one by one on the register as if counting them out. She got a confused look and gathered them back up and did it a second time, then said “sorry I’m having a having a moment” or something like that. The third time she laid down the bills I counted out loudly

Twenty
Fourty
Sixty
Sixty five
Sixty six
Sixty seven and so on

I could almost feel the folks in line counting along with us and as I wandered out a in line guy wearing a Captain America shirt mouthed “wow” to me.

She looked a bit embarrassed and started putting the cash in the register and turned to the other cashier, a manager, and said she needed a break, he told her in a few as the store was really busy.

I’ll omit her specific details which are irrelevant, but note that she was relatively young with made up hair and fancy store bought nails.

Thus ended my first personal experience with the effects of “new math”

There’s a reason the cash registers at McDonalds have pictures of the food on them.

[Land Owner]

Please, please, p-lease, please, please don't get started on why Janey, John-boy, Jamequa, Juleon, Carmaleta, and Ramon (to name a few), as minimally High School and sometimes College graduates in the U.S.A., CAN'T READ! Mathematics and Science! HA! FREE public education and expectations unfulfilled. Let the Government be the children's babysitter.

I interviewed a college degreed, State Registered, Professional Engineer, recommended his hire, and worked with him as an Associate. He stayed at work, a lot, after everyone left for the day, a practice not discouraged in salaried individuals.

Seven months into the association, an email of his to our client "backfired". MS-Word autocorrect butchered a client's last name in an obvious, disgraceful, and discriminatory way. The engineer hadn't proof-read his work before sending it. I got a heated call from Management to "straighten out this mess" and further to review all of this engineer's ongoing work.

I was completely blindsided to discover that he was FUNCTIONALLY ILLITERATE in spite of his documented career that included significant projects in engineering - projects that I knew about before he worked with me. I was confused by the discovery and discouraged in HIM. I proof-read his work for a year. HE DID VERY GOOD WORK, which I told him (and Management) personally. The man just could not read very well. Why he didn't improve after 20-years in the practice of engineering, IDK!!!!!!!!!!

He left us and took a job with the Government, where he continued his career to retirement! Go figure.

[Finster101]

It is not all the school systems fault. How many parents know their kid can't read and do little to nothing about it? Worse is how many parents have no idea their kid can't read?

[Tazman1602]

I was counting back change at 14….

Art

[Soundguy]

Yesterday while I was out and about running some errands I stopped in to throw some gas in the truck for the week. It’s a fairly large chain with a red logo and I’m in there at least twice a week to fill the cars as it’s convenient and the fuel seems to be good quality. I guesstimated about $70 which I pulled out and counted twice while I was in the line waiting for my turn to pay. When I got to the cashier I handed her the stack of bills which consisted of three twenties, one five and five ones and told her how much I was paying. Being a “regular” at the station it was evident she was relatively new. She fanned out the bills and tapped each one with her thumb. She then laid them out one by one on the register as if counting them out. She got a confused look and gathered them back up and did it a second time, then said “sorry I’m having a having a moment” or something like that. The third time she laid down the bills I counted out loudly

Twenty
Fourty
Sixty
Sixty five
Sixty six
Sixty seven and so on

I could almost feel the folks in line counting along with us and as I wandered out a in line guy wearing a Captain America shirt mouthed “wow” to me.

She looked a bit embarrassed and started putting the cash in the register and turned to the other cashier, a manager, and said she needed a break, he told her in a few as the store was really busy.

I’ll omit her specific details which are irrelevant, but note that she was relatively young with made up hair and fancy store bought nails.

Thus ended my first personal experience with the effects of “new math”

And not only new math.. but new minimum wage.. and younger people that have sat at home for 2+ years getting free money or not having to work.

[Battis]

Even more than the math, I'm concerned about what's happening to the English language. Punctuation, spelling, sentence structure...
LOL, LMAO, etc, ain't gonna cut it.

[.429&H110]

My youngest was born 1981, has the talent to be an artist.
As a artist, he wasn't interested in math.
One day he was quite stumped so we did the lesson.
"No, that's too hard, and I'll never use it"
The lesson was translating triangles, turning them, shrinking them, moving them. It isn't hard. I explained how computer animation works, with many turning triangles, he said no, the computer does that. No, the computer does nothing but what you tell it to do, it's how animation works, you need this. Two years later at the University of the Arts, he hit the triangles again, and it was too late, they weren't teaching, they were doing. Talent will only get you started. I warned my boy that Art is a trade, and hard work too, you need a fire in the belly to succeed. No fire in that one. I taught all my kids to make change, odd that the school skipped that lesson. I believe if you don't teach your kids to read, no-one else will. Anything our gov't touches, it ruins, schools for example.

My grandfather reported that in 1926 a carpenter said to him:
"I am glad to teach a young man my trade, but d-----d if I have to teach him to read a ruler".

Thousandths of an inch? That's too hard...I'll never use it...

[Bmi48219]

My brother and his wife raised a large family. Around 1980 they decided to Home School after seeing the decline of ethics and morals in the education system. All their children have prospered and have retained the values they learned as kids. My wife was concerned about home schooling not providing social interaction. That turned out to be a non-issue. If I was starting a family now I couldn’t live with sending my kids to a state funded school.

[Shawlerbrook]

Probably an indictment of our public education system. They are so busy teaching CRT, gender identity and what pronouns are acceptable they have no time to teach reading, writing and arithmetic. Our local small viewership TV station hires new anchors right out of college. You wouldn’t believe the words that they cannot pronounce correctly and they are all native speaking Americans.

[TurnipEaterDown]

It's not new (bad skills coming out of public school).
I was a fast food restaurant assistant manager in the mid 1980s. I had one young lady (HS grad) that would make change at the register by staring blankly at the drawer, pulling some bills and a mitt full of change, and hand it back. She would be off $20-30 from drawer balance after doing $250 in business.
So, we made her (and everyone else, couldn't hurt those feelings you know...) use the change calculation tool built into the register.
She still couldn't identify which coin was which, and would be off $10.

Trust me: nothing wrong organically with her (i.e. no deformity / retardation), just plain incapable and didn't care.

[imashooter2]

It's not new (bad skills coming out of public school).
I was a fast food restaurant assistant manager in the mid 1980s. I had one young lady (HS grad) that would make change at the register by staring blankly at the drawer, pulling some bills and a mitt full of change, and hand it back. She would be off $20-30 from drawer balance after doing $250 in business.
So, we made her (and everyone else, couldn't hurt those feelings you know...) use the change calculation tool built into the register.
She still couldn't identify which coin was which, and would be off $10.

Trust me: nothing wrong organically with her (i.e. no deformity / retardation), just plain incapable and didn't care.

Why was she still working the second day?

[Battis]

I was a truant officer for 12 years. I can say there was nothing wrong with the school system that attentive parents couldn't fix. I'd say that 99% of the kids I dealt with were products of their bad family lives.

[pworley1]

My grandfather was born in 1898. He went through all the grades available to him 8. He had a copy of the math book they used. It was used for all grades. It started with counting and simple arithmetic in the front and finished with geometry and trigonometry at the end. He could multiply and divide four digit numbers faster in his head than I could with a pencil and paper.

[am44mag]

It's possible she really was having a moment. Dyslexia, or something else.

She also probably was not a millennial.

Yeah, that's a very real possibility. People like to throw the word Millennial around, but in reality, Millennials are getting older. The oldest are 41 now. The youngest are 25-26.

Gen Z (Zoomers) are the youth of today.

[john.k]

Funny about making change........I had an after school job selling chocs,drinks etc in a picture theatre.....comission only,and pitiful......so we used to overcharge a few cents for everything,and keep it ....but the old woman who ran the concession would be furious if there was any evidence of wrong money at settle up time....as was the theatre manager ,with dire threats of calling police in.......you had to be on top of your tally all the time ,as the old woman would have spot checks.

[john.k]

Back in the dim dark ages,the department (and the whole govt) paid wages in cash .....the pays had to be made up day before payday......and strangely enough ,the cash float had to be correct at the end of the shift ,down to the cent after making up 1000 plus pays...Millions of $. a month......and it was ,we had a dedicated crew that did not make any mistakes..........then the pays were contracted out to an armoured delivery co,who were just getting into pays.......and mistakes .....must have cost the armoured delivery co a million bucks in losses.

[bedbugbilly]

So . . . is it any wonder why so many of this particular generation don't have the ability to pay back their student loans and think that the rest of us, who have worked hard for year and paid our own way, should foot the bill and pay it back for them?