I grew up in the age of electronic calculators (graduated high school in 2004), and I think all high school students today should be forced to learn with slide rules, with handheld electronic calculators banned from classroom use for students aged 5–20.
The assignments given to high school students requiring high-precision calculations that cannot be done efficiently without a handheld electronic calculator are almost universally a pedagogically worthless waste of time. Most problems would benefit from being conceptually more interesting / more involved, but using simpler numbers.
Slide rules are much better tools than handheld calculators for giving students an intuitive understanding of the relevant mathematical functions, as well as learning about place value, numerical precision, .... The students who use slide rules are getting a better education, and wasting less of their time.
For high school work, the 2–3 digits of precision provided by a slide rule are entirely adequate, and with just a bit of practice they are very fast and effective practical tools, not appreciably slower than handheld calculators for basic use.
Any computation too demanding for a slide rule (e.g. physical simulations, statistical analysis, plotting complicated mathematical functions, ...) should be typed on a full-sized keyboard in a proper programming environment.
I also think younger students (3rd–8th grade) should be working with freeform counting boards, like the ones used in Ancient Greece/Rome and medieval Europe. IMO these are better preparation for algorithmic thinking than doing arithmetic using pen and paper. (Students should continue using pen and paper; just not exclusively.)
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Smart phones are definitely a double-edged sword. They offer many wonderful conveniences, but they are also extremely addictive and are in practice also doing incredible damage to people’s a ability to concentrate, do creative work, maintain healthy face-to-face social relationships, get enough sleep, etc.
That's a great point about slide rules and precision. I wish more people understood it. I am sick of seeing statistics where n < 100 reported to 4 significant figures.
Agreed. My HS aged son does well in all of his math classes but is entirely dependent on his calculator to solve any given problem. I worry he will struggle as he reaches college level math since he hasn't ever internalized what the calculator is doing. He simply plugs in the numbers and gets an answer.
The assignments given to high school students requiring high-precision calculations that cannot be done efficiently without a handheld electronic calculator are almost universally a pedagogically worthless waste of time. Most problems would benefit from being conceptually more interesting / more involved, but using simpler numbers.
Slide rules are much better tools than handheld calculators for giving students an intuitive understanding of the relevant mathematical functions, as well as learning about place value, numerical precision, .... The students who use slide rules are getting a better education, and wasting less of their time.
For high school work, the 2–3 digits of precision provided by a slide rule are entirely adequate, and with just a bit of practice they are very fast and effective practical tools, not appreciably slower than handheld calculators for basic use.
Any computation too demanding for a slide rule (e.g. physical simulations, statistical analysis, plotting complicated mathematical functions, ...) should be typed on a full-sized keyboard in a proper programming environment.
I also think younger students (3rd–8th grade) should be working with freeform counting boards, like the ones used in Ancient Greece/Rome and medieval Europe. IMO these are better preparation for algorithmic thinking than doing arithmetic using pen and paper. (Students should continue using pen and paper; just not exclusively.)
* * *
Smart phones are definitely a double-edged sword. They offer many wonderful conveniences, but they are also extremely addictive and are in practice also doing incredible damage to people’s a ability to concentrate, do creative work, maintain healthy face-to-face social relationships, get enough sleep, etc.