Is this unusual?

[mathwonk]

I am a math guy and view the world through that lens no doubt. Hence sometimes things happen which puzzle me from that perspective.

 

When I told my university retirement advisor I intended to retire exactly 24 months from June 1, 2008, he consulted a calendar to see when that day would occur. That surprised me. (Of course I was using the possibly specialized information that each year consists of 12 months, plus division skills learned in school. Maybe 12X = 24 is even considered algebra?)

 

Today when I told the customer service rep of the newspaper that my paper should have started back on the 19th but had still not started yet by today, the 22nd, she offered to credit me "for the two days missed". I was again puzzled, and explained, just by counting it out on my fingers which I learned even before my formal school days, how this should more likely be 4 days.

 

Does this happen all the time? I.e. does it seem odd or extreme, or is it just me?

[*Michelle*]

Sadly, no.

[danybug]

Not odd at all! I am amazed when you go to a store and the cashier is completely thrown off if you hand them coins towards the total after the fact and they are completely flustered and have no idea how to make change. My 11yo ds has to spit out the correct change answer and then they hand it to us.

 

Oh, I have another one. We went to the bank yesterday to make a deposit in one of the kids accounst and the teller could not add $150 and $72. She had to pull out her adding machine.

 

I think part of it is that our society is lazy in terms of just becoming completely dependent on technology to give us the answers for any math type problem.

[thescrappyhomeschooler]

When I told my university retirement advisor I intended to retire exactly 24 months from June 1, 2008, he consulted a calendar to see when that day would occur. That surprised me. (Of course I was using the possibly specialized information that each year consists of 12 months, plus division skills learned in school. Maybe 12X = 24 is even considered algebra?)

 

 

Well, you know some of those odd years could contain 13 months! :lol::lol::lol:

 

It doesn't surprise me.

[Snickerdoodle]

.

[2_girls_mommy]

Sounds normal to me. I would have looked at a calendar. Yes, I could do the math, but likely I was thinking of 12 other things at the time, and for me it would be easier to look at the calendar.

 

On the days of the paper, I bet it was just a slip up. I am often thinking one thing and say another, because I am thinking of other things. She could have been busy pulling up the program on the computer, or trying to turn it on, or searching for your name, or just zipping up her purse because she just sat down after a break. It often takes me a second to get focused and organized.

 

When she (or if it was I doing it) sat down to actually input the dates it would have been correct (hopefully for her. It would have been for me.) Though I often speak not what I am thinking, I am an intelligent person. I might not always sound like it :tongue_smilie:

 

I am not a math person either, btw. I am a language arts kind of person. Bad grammar and punctuation stick out to me all of the time. And others don't seem to notice it. Menus and signs at the zoo with unneeded apostrophes drive me bonkers. Others put them there, so obviously they aren't concerned about them.

[thescrappyhomeschooler]

Today when I told the customer service rep of the newspaper that my paper should have started back on the 19th but had still not started yet by today, the 22nd, she offered to credit me "for the two days missed". I was again puzzled, and explained, just by counting it out on my fingers which I learned even before my formal school days, how this should more likely be 4 days.

 

 

Oh, and you don't even want to know how long it took me to explain how much credit was due to me on my phone bill! I literally talked to 10 different people and only one of them understood the situation. It was slightly more complicated because they charge you in advance for services, but I was even willing to forget about the balance of the days in the cycle that I had already prepaid for and just wanted credit for several months afterward that they charged me. It was a nightmare.

[marbel]

Oh, I have another one. We went to the bank yesterday to make a deposit in one of the kids accounst and the teller could not add $150 and $72. She had to pull out her adding machine.

 

Somewhat OT but when I worked in banking many years ago, we were required to add up everything with our 10-key and attach the tape to the deposit slip. Even if the deposit consisted of a $10 check and a $15 check.

 

I was no math whiz before that, but after 2 years working there I could barely do any simple math in my head.

 

Cashiers today are not taught how to make change, as the cash register tells them how much to give. So, I can see how it would be confusing to suddenly have extra money tossed their way in the middle of the transaction.

[mathwonk]

Your bank example reminded me of a case last week involving my own granddaughter who[m?, is "consider" transitive?] I consider highly gifted in math. We were discussing prime numbers and testing the number 97 for divisibility by 3 and 7. I told her the trick that a number is divisible by 3 if the sum of its digits, here 9+7, is divisible by 3, but she did not know what 9+7 was.

 

Nonetheless when I pointed out that another test is that 99 is divisible by 3, hence 97 which is only 2 away cannot be, she immediately responded that hence 97 is also not divisible by 7, because we had just learned that 91 is divisible by 7 and 97 is only 6 away from 91.

 

This second feat of hers was quicker and more accurate than I could do myself, and was an application of two facts she had only learned moments before.

 

Maybe they don't teach even math gifted kids arithmetic anymore in school? Maybe everyone just assumes that a calculator will always be at hand?

 

2_girls_mommy and marbel make good points too. I often make mistakes from lack of brain/mouth coordination, and when I worked in an insurance office using a calculator all day long I quickly lost my normal highly accurate mental computational skills. And thescrappyhomeschooler reminds me of the time the mortgage company incorrectly transformed "extra principal" payments into advance monthly payments, over a period of a year or so. What a nightmare, since it also involved percentages. But I actually made a profit when they fixed this since, although they accepted the right circumstances, I could not convince them of the correct answer.

Edited August 22, 2012 by mathwonk

[FaithManor]

I am a math guy and view the world through that lens no doubt. Hence sometimes things happen which puzzle me from that perspective.

 

When I told my university retirement advisor I intended to retire exactly 24 months from June 1, 2008, he consulted a calendar to see when that day would occur. That surprised me. (Of course I was using the possibly specialized information that each year consists of 12 months, plus division skills learned in school. Maybe 12X = 24 is even considered algebra?)

 

Today when I told the customer service rep of the newspaper that my paper should have started back on the 19th but had still not started yet by today, the 22nd, she offered to credit me "for the two days missed". I was again puzzled, and explained, just by counting it out on my fingers which I learned even before my formal school days, how this should more likely be 4 days.

 

Does this happen all the time? I.e. does it seem odd or extreme, or is it just me?

 

 

Well, we all can have moments of brain fog and are so distracted we can't come up with something that should be so simple, but those should be uncommon. Unfortunately, I'm witnessing so much of it in so many walks of life, that I'm lead to believe that it isn't a matter of just catching the occasional person in an off moment, I've had mine too and I'm a VERY math oriented person, but a systemic American education problem.

 

Faith

[theYoungerMrsWarde]

When I told my university retirement advisor I intended to retire exactly 24 months from June 1, 2008, he consulted a calendar to see when that day would occur. That surprised me. (Of course I was using the possibly specialized information that each year consists of 12 months, plus division skills learned in school. Maybe 12X = 24 is even considered algebra?)

 

Maybe he was checking to see if it was a leap year?

[kitten18]

Your bank example reminded me of a case last week involving my own granddaughter who[m?, is "consider" transitive?] I consider highly gifted in math. We were discussing prime numbers and testing the number 97 for divisibility by 3 and 7. I told her the trick that a number is divisible by 3 if the sum of its digits, here 9+7, is divisible by 3, but she did not know what 9+7 was.

 

Nonetheless when I pointed out that another test is that 99 is divisible by 3, hence 97 which is only 2 away cannot be, she immediately responded that hence 97 is also not divisible by 7, because we had just learned that 91 is divisible by 7 and 97 is only 6 away from 91.

 

This second feat of hers was quicker and more accurate than I could do myself, and was an application of two facts she had only learned moments before.

 

Maybe they don't teach even math gifted kids arithmetic anymore in school? Maybe everyone just assumes that a calculator will always be at hand?

 

2_girls_mommy and marbel make good points too. I often make mistakes from lack of brain/mouth coordination, and when I worked in an insurance office using a calculator all day long I quickly lost my normal highly accurate mental computational skills. And thescrappyhomeschooler reminds me of the time the mortgage company incorrectly transformed "extra principal" payments into advance monthly payments, over a period of a year or so. What a nightmare, since it also involved percentages. But I actually made a profit when they fixed this since, although they accepted the right circumstances, I could not convince them of the correct answer.

I'm just curious. How old is your granddaughter?

[mathwonk]

She's 11.

 

Would brain fog could explain the example back during the Atlanta Olympics when a phone ticket sales person persistently declined to sell a ticket to a customer in New Mexico, because "we don't send tickets out of the United States"? He eventually had it sent to a friend in Arizona. I guess it could - I've done stuff that far out.

[Parrothead]

Maybe he was checking to see if it was a leap year?

But...

 

But...

 

But 2010 is not divisible by 4 so it wouldn't be a leap year.

 

 

(I suppose not everyone keeps those odd trivial things in their head.)

[justLisa]

But...

 

But...

 

But 2010 is not divisible by 4 so it wouldn't be a leap year.

 

 

(I suppose not everyone keeps those odd trivial things in their head.)

 

Hey that's cool! :D

[Parrothead]

 

When I told my university retirement advisor I intended to retire exactly 24 months from June 1, 2008, he consulted a calendar to see when that day would occur. That surprised me. (Of course I was using the possibly specialized information that each year consists of 12 months, plus division skills learned in school. Maybe 12X = 24 is even considered algebra?)

 

Could he have been looking to see what day of the week 1 June 2010 fell on? Not everyone would know it was a Tuesday.

 

And I had to look up 1 June 2008 to know it was on a Sunday before I knew 1 June 2010 was on a Tuesday.

[mathwonk]

To be honest, when I conceived this thread, I pushed back in mind the frequent experiences I have had as a mathematician when someone has said to me something like:

 

"Can you believe he actually asked me whether every codimension one closed subvariety of complex 5 space can be cut out by a single analytic equation? Doesn't he know the cohomology of a Stein manifold is always trivial? duhh!"

 

At such moments I usually forced myself to laugh, if unconvincingly, and tried to change the subject.

Edited August 22, 2012 by mathwonk

[mathwonk]

Well June 1, 2012 was a Friday and 2012 is a leap year, so of course in 2008 it was on a Sunday!:lol:

[Parrothead]

 

Today when I told the customer service rep of the newspaper that my paper should have started back on the 19th but had still not started yet by today, the 22nd, she offered to credit me "for the two days missed". I was again puzzled, and explained, just by counting it out on my fingers which I learned even before my formal school days, how this should more likely be 4 days.

 

Does this happen all the time? I.e. does it seem odd or extreme, or is it just me?

The rest does not surprise me. I see it happening often. My dh does not work with numbers often and I see him losing his ability with math.

 

Either people are no longer properly taught mental math, or if they were they lose it from lack of use.

 

And money is an issue all its own.

[Parrothead]

Well June 1, 2012 was a Friday and 2012 is a leap year, so of course in 2008 it was on a Sunday!:lol:

Sadly I can't do the calendar backwards. :D

[Parrothead]

To be honest, when I conceived this thread, I pushed back in mind the frequent experiences I have had as a mathematician when someone has said to me something like:

 

"Can you believe he actually asked me whether every codimension one closed subvariety of complex 5 space can be cut out by a single analytic equation? Doesn't he know the cohomology of a Stein manifold is always trivial? duhh!"

 

At such moments I usually forced myself to laugh, if unconvincingly, and tried to change the subject.

Wha...

 

I think my brain broke.

[Parrothead]

She's 11.

 

Would brain fog could explain the example back during the Atlanta Olympics when a phone ticket sales person persistently declined to sell a ticket to a customer in New Mexico, because "we don't send tickets out of the United States"? He eventually had it sent to a friend in Arizona. I guess it could - I've done stuff that far out.

Reason #93,754 that we homeschool. :D

[mathwonk]

"Sadly I can't do the calendar backwards. "

 

Of course I cheated by using the somewhat specialized fact that the eminent photographer Paul Lightfoot had his release party for his book Visual Lingua Franca on Friday June 1, 2012.;)

 

http://testbpc.squarespace.com/storage/pdf-files/June%201%20Paul.pdf

Edited August 22, 2012 by mathwonk

[Soror]

LOL!

 

My husband tried to get $10 worth of quarters at Target this weekend for parking. They said they couldn't because all they had were broken rolls. He asked them if they couldn't just count it out- you know 4 quarters in a dollar times 10 is 40 quarters. Nope, they couldn't do it and just kept repeating, but the roll is broken. He almost popped a vein.

[Dobela]

Either people are no longer properly taught mental math, or if they were they lose it from lack of use.

I think this is it. Back in the 90s when I was teaching middle school, very few teachers were teaching mental math. a few kids were bright enough to do it on their own, but not many. The teachers were so busy teaching to frameworks that were written around standardized tests so that the school could have a higher rating, and the teacher could keep her job, that the focus was not on mental math but rather 'how many concepts can be introduced this year'. Mastery was not necessarily the goal. Hand them calculators, or charts, to help them out, but don't expect more. Money was probably the least taught of any math subject.

[Cinder]

Not odd at all! I am amazed when you go to a store and the cashier is completely thrown off if you hand them coins towards the total after the fact and they are completely flustered and have no idea how to make change.

 

Or when you hand them exact change and they can barely count it out properly then when they input the total received into their register they are confused as to why the machine didn't spit out any change. I was actually more dismayed than amazed.

[Mrs Mungo]

You will like this (well, maybe like is the wrong word):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2isSJKntbg

[mathwonk]

In regard to an 11 year old child whose abstract problem solving IQ score is off the charts, but who struggles with one digit addition problems, is this something some of you have dealt with?

 

I confess I never noticed it until she was tested because, odd as it may seem, to a mathematician, arithmetic calculations are not math. That is sort of like learning vocabulary, it isn't the same as literature (think Hemingway).

 

So I had constructed icosahedra with her, done some modular arithmetic (such as parrothead used to compute days of the week) but had never bothered to ask her any arithmetic problems.

 

Now I am concerned that some people who think this skill is math, might deny her admission to gifted math programs. Experience, suggestions? I assume she can easily learn this skill but either no one is drilling her, or she is uninterested, or is there some other explanation you have encountered?

Edited August 22, 2012 by mathwonk

[kwg]

You will like this (well, maybe like is the wrong word):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2isSJKntbg

 

 

 

:smilielol5: OMG

[mathwonk]

Now that I am getting into how this stuff happens, I think I would have used the caller's own language. I would have pointed out that the difference between dollars and cents is like the difference between kilobytes and deci(deka?) bytes.

 

then I would ask him whether .002 deci-bytes is the same as .002 kilobytes. These things can be fascinating to a teacher. You can't keep hammering on the same misunderstanding in the same way. There is a blind spot that has to be circumnavigated.

 

Get him to say how many bytes you get for a penny and how many for a dollar. Of course sometimes people just go back to their same mistake and repeat it again.

Edited August 22, 2012 by mathwonk

[mathwonk]

Re; post #21, another example is when my mom gave me her recipe for chess pie with just the ingredients. When I asked what order they were assembled, she said "well of course you cream your butter and sugar first, but you always do that." as if everyone on the planet knew this.

 

 

By the way, the motivation for this thread, the phone call to the NYTimes, almost caused me to cancel the subscription, which I took out purely to help them survive the internet competition. I just got another motivation for a thread which I won't start, when paying the bill just now.

 

They asked for a donation to pay for the free papers they distribute to schools. This made me snort. On my campus of 30,000 students there is a metal news stand outside our building, where many hundreds, maybe thousands of students pass daily.

 

They fill it up with maybe a couple dozen ? free papers in the morning and in the afternoon when I look in it, there are always at least a half dozen or a dozen left there. They literally cannot give away free copies of the New York Times.

 

On a similar note, I visited the library at my kids' elite private school, (Jimmy Carter's daughter sends her kids there, the mayor,....) and could not find any books on the shelf that had been checked out in the past 5 years or so. The librarian said, "that's not unusual, those books are mostly not required"!

Edited August 22, 2012 by mathwonk

[Ellie]

Maybe they don't teach even math gifted kids arithmetic anymore in school? Maybe everyone just assumes that a calculator will always be at hand?

I have heard that many classes for gifted children focus on solving problems in a group, without any instruction to begin with, so they just sort of whack at it until they figure it out. :glare:

[theYoungerMrsWarde]

But...

 

But...

 

But 2010 is not divisible by 4 so it wouldn't be a leap year.

 

 

(I suppose not everyone keeps those odd trivial things in their head.)

 

And this year was a leap year. :D

[mathwonk]

I have heard that many classes for gifted children focus on solving problems in a group, without any instruction to begin with, so they just sort of whack at it until they figure it out. :glare:

 

well they teach writing that way at my kids' private school, so as a result no one there knows how to spell. When another parent complained at a parent meeting, I got a big laugh by proposing, tongue in cheek, to help him sponsor a "friends of [school name] spelling group", in imitation of their other parent involvement groups.

[TravelingChris]

I have actually been much happier with cashiers here than I was in the DC area. NOw what is surprising is that the school in NO VA are supposedly some of the best ps in the nation. NOw I guess many of the cashiers didn't attend the No VA schools since the jobs don't pay very well (Not talking about grocery cashiers who always seem to be good).

 

However, I heard that the FDA may soon ban all sales of any over the counter liquid medication for young children. Why? Because apparently only 35% of American parents can handle accurately the measuring like 1/2 teaspoon or 2 tablespoons or 5 mL or any other way they may do it. THat includes when they include a measuring cup in the package. I was totally floored. I had already realized that many Americans were innumerate but didn't think it went to such a low level. In the report it said that these were 3rd grade math skills.

 

Now a book I recently almost finished reading is saying that the problem will just get much worse. Why? Because nowadays, much more than was common fifty years ago, the well educated smart people are marrying other well educated smart people and then raising their children to be well educated smart children. Conversely, the not as smart, relatively uneducated are also marrying their same type and producing more of that type. WIth the transformation of our society in terms of what jobs are available, the information age employs a lot more of the well educated smart and a lot less of the not as smart and relatively uneducated. Our manufacturing jobs where less skills was needed (though not usually no skill as some posters have pointed out that they or their relatives are finding it hard to find employees who have basic math skills needed for skilled manufacturing work) are disappearing.

[thescrappyhomeschooler]

You will like this (well, maybe like is the wrong word):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2isSJKntbg

 

This reminds me of my conversations with the phone company!!!! Oh my GOODNESS! I'm so frustrated for that guy!

[Kathleen in VA]

You will like this (well, maybe like is the wrong word):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2isSJKntbg

 

:svengo:

[FaithManor]

Well, for this I would not always chalk that up to being incapable as in too undereducated to perform the task, it's laziness, pure and simple.

I've met an extraordinary number of parents who are just simply.not.going.to.bother.themselves. with performing the task accurately! I am unfortunately, related to people of this persuasion and they all have very good jobs, performing adequately to the task at hand with skills that are at least of middle school, if not high school level and children were these little add on things they had because it boosted their egos until they found out how much work the little buggers were and now they are made about how hard it is to have kids around and moan about how everyone else should take care of them for them! :tongue_smilie: So me thinks the FDA is likely wrong about the inability to pour Dimatapp to the measurement 1/2 tbsp. or whatever that is clearly marked on the side of the measuring cup - maybe if English is a second language and one was raised in the metric system then it might be confusing though personally, I'm convinced that people from other countries tend to have more sense in their heads and are more resourceful than many of the people who populate my neighborhood :001_huh: - it's just people who can't be bothered to be accurate about how much med they give their child. :smash:

 

That said, I am willing to admit that arithmetic and math achievement in this country is at an EMBARASSING LOW!!!!

 

Faith

[Snickerdoodle]

You will like this (well, maybe like is the wrong word):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2isSJKntbg

 

O. M. G.

[Ellie]

well they teach writing that way at my kids' private school, so as a result no one there knows how to spell. When another parent complained at a parent meeting, I got a big laugh by proposing, tongue in cheek, to help him sponsor a "friends of [school name] spelling group", in imitation of their other parent involvement groups.

There you go.

[TranquilMind]

I am a math guy and view the world through that lens no doubt. Hence sometimes things happen which puzzle me from that perspective.

 

When I told my university retirement advisor I intended to retire exactly 24 months from June 1, 2008, he consulted a calendar to see when that day would occur. That surprised me. (Of course I was using the possibly specialized information that each year consists of 12 months, plus division skills learned in school. Maybe 12X = 24 is even considered algebra?)

 

Today when I told the customer service rep of the newspaper that my paper should have started back on the 19th but had still not started yet by today, the 22nd, she offered to credit me "for the two days missed". I was again puzzled, and explained, just by counting it out on my fingers which I learned even before my formal school days, how this should more likely be 4 days.

 

Does this happen all the time? I.e. does it seem odd or extreme, or is it just me?

No, I'm not even a math person, and it is appalling how few people can count.

 

An entire line of people were sent away from a store check-out line. The cashier did not know how to take money now and ring it up later.

[Twigs]

You will like this (well, maybe like is the wrong word):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2isSJKntbg

 

:banghead::smash::svengo:

[curlylocks]

I have heard that many classes for gifted children focus on solving problems in a group, without any instruction to begin with, so they just sort of whack at it until they figure it out. :glare:

 

Yep...smile and wave boys, smile and wave...

 

This is EXACTLY how my aunt handles her gifted classes.

[kalanamak]

When we went to 24 hour time at work, every nurse's station had a few visual aids posted. I scoffed, but many told me they HAD to have it. Can't add 12 to a number less than 13 in their head. Can't memorize 18:00 and work from there.

 

Scary.

 

I've also discovered that people cannot read Roman numbers for 12 and under. Many people.

 

Scary.

[TrixieB]

In regard to an 11 year old child whose abstract problem solving IQ score is off the charts, but who struggles with one digit addition problems, is this something some of you have dealt with?

 

I confess I never noticed it until she was tested because, odd as it may seem, to a mathematician, arithmetic calculations are not math. That is sort of like learning vocabulary, it isn't the same as literature (think Hemingway).

 

So I had constructed icosahedra with her, done some modular arithmetic (such as parrothead used to compute days of the week) but had never bothered to ask her any arithmetic problems.

 

Now I am concerned that some people who think this skill is math, might deny her admission to gifted math programs. Experience, suggestions? I assume she can easily learn this skill but either no one is drilling her, or she is uninterested, or is there some other explanation you have encountered?

Well... one of my kids can quickly solve complex mathematical problems, to the extent that I ask, "Huh? How did you do that?" BUT that same child struggles with recalling math facts. Yes, we did lots and lots of drill, but my teen writes things like 7x7=47 on math papers.

 

???

 

My other kid has the facts cold, but can't always figure an approach to how to solve complex problems.

[FaithManor]

When we went to 24 hour time at work, every nurse's station had a few visual aids posted. I scoffed, but many told me they HAD to have it. Can't add 12 to a number less than 13 in their head. Can't memorize 18:00 and work from there.

 

Scary.

 

I've also discovered that people cannot read Roman numbers for 12 and under. Many people.

 

Scary.

 

 

I've witnessed this too.

 

One thing that makes my brain wonky is the number of people who think the kids on the rocket team are seriously genius because when flying in 0-3 miles per hour, they often have to use ballast in the rocket to prevent over-shooting their target height. 1 gram of ballast, as a general rule give or take some humidity and temperature conditions, results in a loss of 1.5 ft. So if the kids over shoot by 12 feet, then they'll quickly compute how much ballast they need (8 grams), add it, and launch again usually hitting the target. People think this is rocket science! :glare: They would probably curl up in a ball, sob, and suck their thumbs if they knew what rocket science actually was. I actually prevented a local journalist from making some pretty inaccurate statements in an article about the kids. Sorry dude, you can't claim they are mathematically gifted because as 8th and 9th graders they can divide 12 by 1.5 in their heads!!!! :tongue_smilie:Let us NOT inflate their egos over nothing. Granted, when they start calculating more minute tolerances because of weather conditions, yes that is a little bit more heady than the above problem. But, because we want this kind of problem solving to be "second nature" so they can perform well under pressure, they are each required to solve the equation in their heads and then and only then, can the team manager check everyone's math with the calculator in their field bag.

 

We have shown them the scene from Apollo 13 in which Tom Hanks/Jim Lovell asks Houston to double check his math - performed with good ole fashioned paper, pencil, and slide rule - because he's feeling so much pressure. Houston responds by doing the math but looking worried. Lovell was correct and in circumstances in which his very life depended on not making a mistake. THAT might be classified as rocket science. :D At any rate, I'm glad we are tough on the kids. I think it is good for their brain cells!

 

Faith

[LaxMom]

Could he have been looking to see what day of the week 1 June 2010 fell on? Not everyone would know it was a Tuesday.

 

And I had to look up 1 June 2008 to know it was on a Sunday before I knew 1 June 2010 was on a Tuesday.

 

Your peculiar brilliance frightens me, sometimes. :D

[kiwi mum]

In regard to an 11 year old child whose abstract problem solving IQ score is off the charts, but who struggles with one digit addition problems, is this something some of you have dealt with?

 

You might want to do a search here for "Visual Spatial Learners". The situation you describe is common for VSLs. My 11 year old still has blanks at times on simple addition and multiplication problems but did very well in College Algebra last year. If he had been in school he would never have been allowed to advance in math because he cannot do the speed drills fast enough.

[mathwonk]

Thanks kiwi mum, I'll check that out. And @ Faith Manor, I am reminded of the projectile problem we teach in calculus assuming the earth is flat. Not until i read Gaileo did I realize (in reference to what I was teaching) that the earth is not flat (??!!) and that the "gravity lines" we assume are parallel to the y axis in calculus actually meet at the center of the earth. This is relevant when doing projectile problems that involve horizontal distances that approach the diameter of the earth, or heaven forbid exceed it. I.e. some problems we assign as to when does a projectile fall to earth, would have as correct answer: "never", if the numbers were a bit larger. Or to put it another way, unlike the universal assumption of students, not all phenomena are linear.

 

"Always read the masters, not just the pupils." (Abel)

Edited August 23, 2012 by mathwonk

[magnificent_baby]

I have heard that many classes for gifted children focus on solving problems in a group, without any instruction to begin with, so they just sort of whack at it until they figure it out. :glare:

 

:iagree::iagree::iagree:

 

THIS is why we are hs'ing. :001_smile:

 

And it's not just G & T classes, it's implemented district wide now.