given that no school seems to have resisted the ‘calculators in class’ trend, I expect to having to spend a notable amount of time with my son when older to make sure he grasps these concepts mentally.
... and it is not just simple calculators for doing the number crunching it is calcs that have the formulas embedded into them so you don’t eve have to show your work anymore.
I have a re-occurring nightmare/daydream ( whatever ) that some holocaust lays waste to the human race and nobody can remember the formulas and how to use them to make things like steel, plastic, airplanes, medicine etc... so we basically start over with fire.
The school district in which my niece and nephew are forced to go to school does not teach multiplication tables. Memorization, which is what this is, is forbidden. So they don’t know their times table and so they will not be abole to do long division. It’s maddening.