As discussed in the previous two articles, the old skills of reading, writing and ‘rithmetic are still needed, even in a society as technologically advanced as ours.
And the question remains.
How are our children going to learn the basic three “R”s that the older generation had to learn in school, if the schools are not able to teach that stuff anymore because of all the technological advancements that they have to teach now?
Problem: If you have been anywhere around “old people” you have heard them talk about how “kids” today don’t know how to count out change. The computerized cash register has become the norm for all but the most basic stores now.
The computerized cash register tells the cashier how much change is to be returned. This is a good thing for the company using the cash register because there is less error in the amount of change being returned, but the person using the cash register does not have to learn how to count back change. Then, if and when, the cash register is off line, it is impossible for many cashiers to figure out how to do their jobs.
There is also the problem of children buying merchandise and not knowing if the cashier has returned the proper amount of money.
This is a problem even schools have noticed and they have been working on solutions for about ten years.
Solution: Even at the kindergarten level, students are learning (again) how to count change back. But, as parents, we need to be active in our children’s learning and this is an area that we can do a lot with.
We can teach our children fractions (recipes almost always include fractions), decimals (money and radio stations come to mind, but also libraries), and simple algebra (I found asking my daughter for help with my beginner algebra was a way to include her in my studies and she really liked that she could help).
The public schools are teaching children in grade school how to do simple algebra, so we might as well be able to show them that algebra is just another way of doing math.