S.Peelman on 16 May 2020
| SvennoJ said: Important stuff like homeschooling :/ Big debate at home about beginner algebra. They're not teaching the basics or any understanding it seems, just tricks to get to the answer which create confusion. It's not good when you can stump the teacher with a simple 3x + 6 = 3, solve x question... Negative numbers seem to be the bottleneck. Tricks are useful as my other kid got stumped by the math program asking whether the outcome of stuff like 34692374703 + 2368458348 is even or odd. Poor fella was trying to actually add all those numbers up. It's weird they already get some algebra but never learned basics like multiplication tables. Is that not part of school anymore? I know I had to recite all the tables in grade 3 or 4. Knowing those by heart makes all this school math a lot easier. Like yesterday the young one had questions like what's the mean of 8 9 7 8 6 10 8 8 and 6 7 9 9 5 7 7 6. All sets of 8, all with whole number outcomes, knowing the tables makes it trivial. The fun continues, one in tears over algebra, the other screaming how stupid it is and more worried about getting a good score in the math program while the seconds tick away... Oh well, Google can solve it all anyway. Although the way Tiger Algebra does it is even more confusing https://www.tiger-algebra.com/drill/3x_6=3/ |
That even/odd question is just mean though.
I don't know how it's now, here or elsewhere, but I certainly had to recite multiplication tables in school when I was 8 or something, and I sucked hard at it lol. I did go on to rock math at high school, always getting high grades for that. Sadly now fifteen years later I forgot everything. Though that Tiger Algebra indeed doesn't make it easier, I'd substract 6 to get 3x=-3 and you'd immediately get your answer.
