An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

Re:An update on the campaign to defend serious math educatio... by chadash on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @02:35PM (#31171337)

Out of curiosity, is that a hunch or are you aware of any schools teaching multiplication tables even in Kindergarten? This used to be done in second grade when I was a kid.

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Re:An update on the campaign to defend serious math educatio... by amanwithnoplan on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @03:11PM (#31171810)

I'm not aware of any schools teaching multiplication tables in kindergarten, but I did memorize the 9x9 table when I was in kindergarten because my older siblings' Big Kids Notebooks all had the times table on the back and it formed a rhyme/ditty in the local language. After it was explained to me that multiplication was repeated addition, that made perfect sense.

But don't ask me about division, my siblings/parents/whoever tried to explain it as "the opposite of multiplication", which was complete nonsensical gibberish and I didn't learn division until years later.

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Re:An update on the campaign to defend serious math educatio... by texaslonghorn5 on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @02:40PM (#31171396)

You're right, it's a hunch (n=1.5±0.5).

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Re:An update on the campaign to defend serious math educatio... by chadash on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @03:37PM (#31172161)

When I was in kindergarten, I used to do math booklets at home with my mom for fun. I learned basic multiplication sometime around then. 13 years later I majored in engineering.

So I'm not saying it can't be done by any 5 year olds, but it seems young to teach this to the majority of 5 year olds.

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