The importance today, of "Times-Tables" ???

[GlennSprigg]

I'm in my early-mid 60's now, and was recently 'Shocked' that the majority of
school kids these days, (I'm in Australia...), do NOT know the basic tables !!!!!!!
I know we have computers & tablets & phones & calculators, but when you
don't have that 'one' needs to still know the basics, today, tomorrow & ever.

Kids here, leave 'Primary' School, (Year 7), with no such enforced preparation.
Say one asks someone what is "36 x 46".... We write it one under the other, &
draws 2 lines..... (Hey we are working it out 'manually', ha... xxx).....   So...
The 1st step is "What is 6 x 6"..... No more short cuts here !, they don't know!
(6x6 = 36, write the 6, carry the 3....)  They have no idea
Something is WAY wrong with things these days........

My 'Niece' knew what '3 x 4' was....  (Wow.. advanced... that equals '12'... )
Next question....  "What's 30 x 40".......   Her answer......
"How the hell would you expect me to know that !!!!!", with much indignation.
I explained that it is '3x4' with two '0's after it, being 1200....   (oops, edited)
She looked at me as if I was from another Planet !!!!!  (And still didn't get it...)
(She is now 14 years old...........)

TELL ME I'm missing something    

[BradC]

I'm 44. I never learned my times tables (although the they tried very hard to make me). Instead I learned the mental arithmetic required to solve those questions and any others that could be asked that were outside the bounds of the tables being learned by rote. My maths teacher once said "you can't solve that problem using a logarithm".

When asked to clarify that he replied that indeed you could solve it that way, but that was unsupported by the current curriculum and therefore if I was to answer that way in an exam and my final answer wasn't correct I'd get no points for a partial or correct methodology. I casually remarked that wouldn't be a problem as I never needed to show working because I was always correct.

As they used to say in the Middle East : "same, same but different".

Incidentally that attitude (whilst entirely accurate in that particular class) did not serve me well later in life and took quite some years of hard adjusting.

[jpanhalt]

Ah, but think of the really important stuff they have learned....I'm still thinking.  Excellent preparation to work a cash register at McDonalds.   

[Cerebus]

Kids here, leave 'Primary' School, (Year 7), with no such enforced preparation.
Say one asks someone what is "36 x 46"....

You're going to have to put an actual age against that if you want to be understood by the multi-national audience here.

In what we call(ed) primary school here in the UK (ages 5-7) I wouldn't expect them to be able to do "36 x 46" off pat by the end of primary school. Basic times tables "3 x 6", "3 x 4" and "6 x 6", to some extent yes, but not long multiplication by that stage.

Just checked, the current UK curriculum doesn't expect them to know the full 12 x 12 times table until a year after that, and only then to start doing full long multiplication. The previous year includes 'short multiplication' which is XX x X, i.e. multiplying a 2 digit number by a one digit number.

[bitseeker]

TELL ME I'm missing something    

I don't think you're missing something. It's the kids who are missing out. But, I'm just an old guy now and probably don't "get it" anymore.

The other day I paid cash for something and while the cashier was working on collecting the change from the cash drawer, I said I had three pennies (you know, to make the coinage come out nicely) and she just looked at me funny.

[sleemanj]

I'm over 40 now, don't ask me what anything above a multiplier of 6 is unless it's a common pairing like 8x8, or a decimal multiplier of course.

If you are resorting to doing stuff long-hand, a few extra seconds to figure out what 7x9 is isn't going to hurt none.

The main thing is to understand how to work out what you don't know.  And preferably developing sufficient understanding to be able to find a sufficiently efficient route (ie, recognising that 7x9 is 7 times 10 minus 7, rather than 7 plus 7 plus...)

As for showing working, it's not about "salvaging marks", it's about showing you understand how to solve the problem and didn't just make a stab in the dark or arrive at a correct answer by some incorrect method out of sheer luck.

[Cerebus]

Meanwhile in China.

When I did grade school, we did first order equations with one unknown at grade 6, and quadratic at grade 7, then trigonometry at grade 9 and advanced trigonometry at grade 11, followed by entry level calculus at grade 12.

Which, if I understand the Chinese grade system translates to:

When I  did grade school, we did first order equations with one unknown at age 12, and quadratic at age 12/13, then trigonometry at age 15 and advanced trigonometry at age 15/16, followed by entry level calculus at age 18.

Which isn't far from the western norms in my time, except that we studied trig earlier (age 13/14) - which was a welcome relief from all the classical geometry that filled our notebooks at age 12 and made the algebra we did look like light relief - and were on to an introduction to calculus by age 15/16. My maths O-level examination papers (taken at age 16+) included basic calculus questions.

[Cerebus]

That looks right to me. Maybe nowadays the kids just spend too much time on social justice and political correctness.

Says the man who comes from a country where mandatory school classes include 'social studies', 'ideology and morality' and 'labor studies'. 

[IanB]

In what we call(ed) primary school here in the UK (ages 5-7)

The age range of primary school would depend on which county you live in and which LEA you come under. Where I grew up we had Primary school up to age 10, and Secondary school from age 11 onward. (Primary school was in two stages, Infant school and Junior school.)

Primary/Secondary is I think the most common system in England, but I believe some counties have or had Primary/Middle/Secondary school systems with different age ranges for each.

[Ampera]

>Entry level calculus at grade 12

Good to know I'm ahead of the Chinese punch. 

I'm a bit of a bad example here, as I knew pretty much my complete times tables by the time I was around 7ish, maybe 8. I then started on base level Algebra (unknowns etc.) when I was around 10. 4 years later was my first college course, College Algebra and Trigonometry, which was largely a review, with some more advanced Trig concepts thrown in. I'm 16 now and while I am taking a lull with college stats, my last class (when I was 15) that I would call advanced-ish maths was Calc 2.

I think, based on the American school system at least, it would be reasonable to expect most kids here to know the complete times tables and be able to do most long maths by around age 9-10. Then again, I've met 13 years olds who could barely read.

I honestly don't have too much of a benchmark, being an introverted homeschooled child (neither caused the other for those worried). I think kids age 7 should be capable of full basic arithmetic, but everybody picks things up at their own rate and own level of dedication.

I'd say the worry point is being 12 and not knowing total and full arithmetic, along with a few concepts of how equations work.

[T3sl4co1l]

That looks right to me. Maybe nowadays the kids just spend too much time on social justice and political correctness.

Says the man who comes from a country where mandatory school classes include 'social studies', 'ideology and morality' and 'labor studies'. 

Keep in mind, the state goal of education: to create citizens obedient to the party(ies).  That any real (intellectual) education occurs, is strictly coincidental.  It just so happens that, in advanced economies, the intellectual power of the people, is the economic power of the people, and therefore of the state -- democracy arises naturally as a consequence of personal power.  It is, of course, for this reason, we must assert ourselves, to the fullest extent of our positions in this vast economy -- including demanding that our children be taught useful, practical skills, like accounting and computer science.

Ahem, borderline-acceptable topics aside,

I've seen "time stables" more than a few times, and in accordance with the intentional typo, they stink about as bad.   I'm not one for wrote memorization, something that's never been particularly valuable to anyone, anyway.  (You can't beat understanding, or creativity, into students with a stick; no, it's a much bigger problem than that -- to get that outcome, you must reorganize "school" entirely.)  I was taught arithmetic in the traditional (what today's [US] parents remember) way, but over time I've forgotten much of the memorization that goes into it (like times tables) and drifted towards a more intuitive, decimal and factorization based method.

Which, it's encouraging to finally see this being implemented in today's curricula (related to "common core" I guess).  Practical arithmetic?  Who would've thought!

Which comes with all the noise of parents griping that "3 x 5 = 15 is wrong", because they don't understand the context of that question (a task of 'making tens' or whatever it's called).

Tim

[IanB]

I'm not one for wrote memorization, something that's never been particularly valuable to anyone, anyway.

I think that's the wrong way of looking at it. Many powerful computational algorithms contain lookup tables somewhere at their core. And that is to be expected: for some things it is faster to retrieve the result from memory than it is to compute it from scratch.

Thus it is with times tables.

If we look at the mind/brain as having an analytical and executive function, then the more basic facts it contains in its database for instant recall, the more powerful and capable will be at solving problems and making decisions.

[Cerebus]

In what we call(ed) primary school here in the UK (ages 5-7)

The age range of primary school would depend on which county you live in. Where I grew up we had Primary school up to age 10, and Secondary school from age 11 onward. (Primary school was in two stages, Infant school and Junior school.)

Primary/Secondary is I think the most common system, but I believe some counties have or had Primary/Middle/Secondary school systems with different age ranges for each.

That's kind of my point, if people refer to their education system by the local 'code name' we don't know what they're talking about, so please put ages.

[Cerebus]

I'm not one for wrote memorization, something that's never been particularly valuable to anyone, anyway.

I think that's the wrong way of looking at it. Many powerful computational algorithms contain lookup tables somewhere at their core. And that is to be expected: for some things it is faster to retrieve the result from memory than it is to compute it from scratch.

Thus it is with times tables.

If we look at the mind/brain as having an analytical and executive function, then the more basic facts it contains in its database for instant recall, the more powerful and capable will be at solving problems and making decisions.

The difference is, as I understand it, kids are nowadays taught to count in twos, count in threes and so on. It's the same data as the times tables but it's organized in a different fashion, a fashion that's better suited to the associative and sequential nature of human memory. For the rote learners: how many times did you have to mentally chant "five sevens are  ..." to trigger the associated memory when you were calculating something?

[Alex Eisenhut]

I'm not one for wrote memorization, something that's never been particularly valuable to anyone, anyway.

How did you know what those words mean? And how to write them?

[IanB]

The difference is, as I understand it, kids are nowadays taught to count in twos, count in threes and so on. It's the same data as the times tables but it's organized in a different fashion, a fashion that's better suited to the associative and sequential nature of human memory. For the rote learners: how many times did you have to mentally chant "five sevens are  ..." to trigger the associated memory when you were calculating something?

But at the end of the day, I want that instant recall for myself. I don't want to mentally have to go 7, 14, 21, 28, 35 when I need to know what five sevens are.

Personally, I never had much time for chanting. I think visually, so I worked from the multiplication square and concentrated on learning the relatively few "difficult" products in the middle, ignoring the easy ones around the edges. I also simplified my task by only learning half of the table. To this day, I recall six sevens rather than seven sixes, and seven eights rather than eight sevens.

[Cerebus]

But at the end of the day, I want that instant recall for myself. I don't want to mentally have to go 7, 14, 21, 28, 35 when I need to know what five sevens are.

What you have now is instant recall, what you had then was the ability to formulate "5 sevens are ... 35" where that "..." is your memory working.

I'm saying that kids ultimately remember the same stuff, they are just taught it differently from our generation. We learned times tables, they learn counting multiples - it is the same data, organized differently. I can't do it the way kids are taught now, precisely because I was taught differently, but I imagine their mental process is "what's the 5th entry in the list of counting by seven" - they don't have to actually mentally count up, just as you and I don't have to start from "1 seven is seven...".

[Cerebus]

I'm not one for wrote memorization, something that's never been particularly valuable to anyone, anyway.

How did you know what those words mean? And how to write them?

You know full well that he said "wrote [sic] memorization" not just "memorization" and you know the two things are not equivalent.

Rote learning is memorizing that "the Battle of Hastings was in 1066", learning why there was a battle and subsequently remembering that is not the same thing. Any idiot can regurgitate the facts of history, few, it seems, can understand them.

[NiHaoMike]

I'm not one for wrote memorization, something that's never been particularly valuable to anyone, anyway.

I think that's the wrong way of looking at it. Many powerful computational algorithms contain lookup tables somewhere at their core. And that is to be expected: for some things it is faster to retrieve the result from memory than it is to compute it from scratch.

Thus it is with times tables.

If we look at the mind/brain as having an analytical and executive function, then the more basic facts it contains in its database for instant recall, the more powerful and capable will be at solving problems and making decisions.

Why preload the cache when you can just let it load by itself? I remember all the common resistor color codes even though I never made the effort to study them.

And I'm sure any computer scientist will tell you that preloading the cache with data that is unlikely to be used is wasteful.

The difference is, as I understand it, kids are nowadays taught to count in twos, count in threes and so on. It's the same data as the times tables but it's organized in a different fashion, a fashion that's better suited to the associative and sequential nature of human memory. For the rote learners: how many times did you have to mentally chant "five sevens are  ..." to trigger the associated memory when you were calculating something?

Digital designers quickly learn to think in powers of two.

[coppice]

Seeing something in a supermarket, and struggling to figure out how much several of them will cost is a practical problem for people. Not being able to do fast rough estimates in their heads, makes it harder for people to relate to what's happening around them. Even though we all have a calculator in our pockets these days, they are a slow and clumsy way to deal with many simple tasks.

Its not the times tables in themselves that really matter. Its the impact on a person's ability to think and analyse their way through simple day to day tasks if they lack all capacity for simple mental arithmetic. Each time I see someone using a calculator in a supermarket to work out how much 3 loaves will be, I see someone as functionally handicapped as someone in a wheelchair.

[Zero999]

I've always thought learning times tables parrot fashion was pointless and still do. I did learn them, because I had to, but can no longer remember them. It's more important to understand the concept and be able to figure it out.

[helius]

I sometimes regret that I only learned the tables up to 10x10 (there are some times when knowing 13x12 would be useful without having to do long multiplication: measuring with yardsticks for instance). But there is a limited window for acquiring this skill and I am far beyond it.

[Gyro]

As someone who a Parietal lobe 'issue' and surgery have left with Acalcula, remembered times-tables etc. have been a lifesaver. Having such lookup tables 'hardwired' in memory makes all the difference in daily life - even if the process of hard-wiring them by repetition was a little painful on the way to school all those years ago!

It's always pays to have a backup for 'critical' functions.

[Rog520]

Public schools (at least West Coast US schools) are much different today in many respects, including how and what you're required to learn. Entry-level teachers are generally poorly paid, class sizes are large, children are hyper and easily distracted, and parental involvement is often inadequate and sometimes totally absent. A teacher considers it a successful day if they can keep the kids under control, nevermind having them memorize the multiplication tables. I blame a lot of this on the parental side of things. Schools are on pins and needles because they're afraid of getting sued if they manhandle Johnny because he's out of control, or if they commit some kind of unintentional non-politically-correct faux pas.

"When I was in school" we were required to learn the multiplication tables to 10x10 by 3rd grade (roughly 8 years old). I had a hell of a time with it. But I come from a family of teachers and there's no way that was going to be allowed to slide. So I memorized them and yeah, remember them all to this day. I even remember some other useful things that we were required to learn in school  . Kids today have access to instant information in the palms of their hands, and they're used to simply looking up stuff they don't know on the fly. While that makes finding answers to questions simple and fast (and actually takes some load off of teachers), it doesn't have the same effect on the brain as studying something. The Google generation has all of the answers and none of the substance.

[bitseeker]

"When I was in school" we were required to learn the multiplication tables to 10x10 by 3rd grade (roughly 8 years old). I had a hell of a time with it. But I come from a family of teachers and there's no way that was going to be allowed to slide. So I memorized them and yeah, remember them all to this day.

Similarly, I learned the tables to 12x12 and still have instant access to them. Is that simply because I still activate those memories?

Those who indicated that they no longer have direct recall of the tables they learned, is that because you (1) stopped using them on a regular basis, (2) switched to computing the results in lieu of the tables, or (3) something else?

I'm curious because I hadn't considered those memories going away before hearing folks here say that  they "lost" them.