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"you're not going to carry a calculator with you everywhere"
The thing is I believe that statement is a bit misunderstood.
Calculators were already becoming pocket sized back in the day, but using it to calculate things if you don't know how to use it is where the actual problem is.
Hence the reasoning to learn how to math vs only having the device.
Calculators were already becoming pocket sized back in the day…
True, but I can count on 0 hands how many people I knew carried one in their pocket.
Now if the calculator were built into a beeper, everyone would have had one.
or a watch!
But only the really cool kids had those.
I'm not saying I disagree, but I had a different experience.
it's very easy to enter wrong numbers on a calculator, but you need some basic reasoning and familiarity to know when an answer is off, and you need to start over
Yeah, in my experience "You won't carry a calculator with you everywhere you go" was what they said to justify pointless busywork.
You may carry one now, but can you calculate percentages on it without your maths lessons? Can you convert fractions? I blame the technology, if it's going to math it needs to math all maths
Frankly, these days? Yeah you totally can. "Hey Siri, what's 3% of 235,889?" or "Hey Siri, what's 8/37ths converted to 300ths?" will most likely just feed you a correct answer.
And you might not have a smartphone or smartwatch with you. I've seen people who needed a calculator to do basic math.