Quote:
Originally Posted by BillyMac
Along with Mark T. DeNucci, Sr., we're probably the only three Forum members that still know how to use one, or, for that matter, actually know what a slide rule is.
Now I have to go out and yell at the neighborhood kids, again, to get off my front lawn.
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to be serious for a moment. Mathematics is a language just as valid as English, Italian, Latin, or FORTRAN. Therefore, There is absolutely no reason for calculators to be used in any mathematics course in H.S.
And to show you how much a calculator is nothing more than a crutch that does nothing to advance the learning of the language of mathematics: Mark, Jr., and Andy (our younger and smarter son because he does not officiate basketball nor umpire baseball and fast pitch softball) graduated from H.S. in 2008 and 2011.
While they were in H.S. the State of Ohio required graduates to pass exams in four different subject areas. Obviously, Mark and Andy passed all four exams the first time they took them with very high scores (high enough to receive special cords to wear when they graduated), they are a chip off the "old mans' block".
The mathematics exam was designed so that one could not pass the exam without the use of a calculator. Neither Mark nor Andy used a calculator: Andy passed with a score over 95%.
And wait for it: Mark was one of only two students in Ohio that year to get a perfect score in the mathematics exam. When Start H.S. was notified by the Ohio Dept. of Education of his perfect score, the school administration told the State that Mark and had not used a calculator during the exam. The Dept. of Educ. did not believe that anyone could pass the exam let alone get a perfect score without using a calculator. The Principal pulled Mark out of class to speak with the State to confirm that he did not use a calculator.
I went through H.S. with a calculator (I graduated H.S. in 1969 and the first HP calculator did not come on the market until 1973) and when I entered engineering school I was worthy enough to own a slide rule (a Post Versalog). I did not own my first calculator (a Texas Instrument) until 1975. We put a man on the Moon using slide rulers and computers did not have no where the computing power of today's smart phones.
Therefore, to paraphrase Mel Brooks: Calculators!! We don't need no stinking calculators!!
MTD, Sr.