Posted on 08/15/2023 6:02:56 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
What many humans don’t realize is how math illiteracy will impact one's ability to lead a successful life in the modern world.
Math is essential for managing personal finances.
Many Americans are living paycheck to paycheck not just because of low wages, but because of their inability to budget money for daily, monthly, and emergency expenses.
Budgeting is basic applied math to the real world of prices or money.
Of course there are budgeting apps which can help to some extent because the apps do some of the math for you. However, ultimately, you must become very aware of how much you are paying for each item or your total purchases will easily exceed your budget allotment. So few of us can be considered to be thrifty shoppers.
Another very important factor, which is not that obvious, is the discipline needed to spend money within or below the budget. This is basically an ability to say 'no' to most purchases for high price items and say no need to purchase right away. Without disciplined purchases, most of us just resort to impulse shopping which many of us are addicted to. So, budgeting is very useful, but unfortunately, only some have the discipline to take advantage of the benefits of budgeting and apply budgeting to their daily lives.
Math plays a crucial role in decision-making in society and without basic math skills you severely handicap yourself and your lifestyle.
Humans should use math to create budgets, calculate expenses, track savings, understand interest rates, manage loans, and plan for retirement.
Consumer math-based decisions are important in comparing prices, discounts, price per pound, product durability, and evaluating the best value for the money.
In health care, math is used in medical research, drug dosage calculations, analyzing medical data, understanding disease patterns, developing treatment plans.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
I did that one time and the clerk gave me back ALL the change that equaled a dollar................
LOL
I swear my wife carries copious quantities of change just to do that to cashiers.
I thought the term was “innumerate” like “illiterate”.
It’s cute to watch the wheels try to spin on some people when they are confronted with simple arithmetic.
"Community organizing" is not a talent nor a skill set. Engineering, math and true science require work, not participation trophies.
As producing manufacturers have been chased away or lured away from this United States, the skill sets and products must be imported when we can no longer build, produce, manufacture.
Made in China. Hecho in Mexico and all means NOT produced in the US. We must pay others, and then in time we will have less and less with which to pay....
Tick tock. Time to reverse the game.
You are correct about Common Core. They reject basic arithmatic literacy in favor of the kind of time-wasting esoteric higher thinking only a math major could love or need. Watch high schoolers reach for their calculators to solve 14 + 9.
Most people who struggle with math were never given enough practice in the basic foundational building blocks to achieve the kind of automaticity which makes further mathematical achievement a breeze.
Educators denigrate such practice as “drill and kill”.
Educators brush past arithmetic before most kids have mastered it. Then it’s off to “higher thinking” skills.
Hey.
The “9”s always cause problems.
I recently explained to my granddaughter: you can add 10 without thinking about it, so add 10 and subtract 1. Do it enough times (practice, AKA drill and kill) and eventually you’ll be able to add 9 without thinking about it.
During the stupider parts of the pandemic, there were stores that claimed they couldn’t give change because of a coin shortage, and for some reason they never wanted to round down to the nearest dollar, only up. I kept a baggie of coins in my truck (still there, come to think of it) so that I could have exact change for any purchase. Three quarters, a dime, two nickels, and four pennies.
I can believe that.
Funny thing is that usually did very well in most accounting classes I took. More reasoning involved I guess.
My math whiz sister had a hard time in accounting.
my Mother was a reading instructor and all ways made good friends with the math teachers.
She felt if students could not read and understand basic English and also, do basic math, they would never really survive in their world.
She retired from public schools when she was 65 and tutored basic reading and math until she was 75.
Before she retired, she was warning and predicting, what would happen in most of our public schools.
Accounting is like engineering: it takes a certain kind of mind to accomplish.
Very true.
I remember when I was in grade school (1970’s) kids would lament that they had to learn algebra and geometry because they would never use it. I had to take 2 semesters of calculus in college haven’s really used much of it. However I did use algebra and geometry almost every day in my professional life.
There you go....
Math helps to develop a good “BS Meter”. Something the owners of this country don’t want the peons to have.
Americans have poor math skills. It’s a threat to US standing in the global economy, employers say:
The nation needs people who are good at math, employers say, in the same way motion picture mortals need superheroes. They say America’s poor math performance isn’t funny. It’s a threat to the nation’s global economic competitiveness and national security.
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The Education Reporting Collaborative, a coalition of eight newsrooms, is documenting the math crisis facing schools and highlighting progress. Members of the Collaborative are AL.com, The Associated Press, The Christian Science Monitor, The Dallas Morning News, The Hechinger Report, Idaho Education News, The Post and Courier in South Carolina, and The Seattle Times.
Extracted: https://apnews.com/article/math-scores-china-security-b60b740c480270d552d750c15ed287b6
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