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Comment by MauranKilom | Hacker News Reader

Probably not the same education system, but there are many things I no longer do explicitly that are nevertheless important for understanding the concept.

Off the top of my head, for just mathematics:

- Long division

- Calculate limits

- Curve sketching

These aren't things I do by hand any more. But if I hadn't learned how to do them, I wouldn't be able to apply them to more advanced problems.

From my extremely limited exposure to US education methods, I would concur that some algorithms are practiced in an excessive manner. But that does not mean that they are useless, even if computers can help you often enough.

Maybe you can name a thing or two that you consider "busywork [that] nobody does any more because we have computers and calculators"?

(I will note though that biology courses always stood out to me in exactly the way that is lamented in this thread - almost entirely memorizing arbitrary things.)

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I would say the times tables is a good example, once you know the mechanics of multiplying 2 numbers you don't need to redundantly memorize the exact values of tables of numbers. The mechanics and how to solve for it are the important pieces to learn. Further I think it actually does more harm as it hinders the child's ability to look at numbers as placeholders and variables when they get into higher level maths. Spending so many years on the basics of mathematics could be speed up if we ensured that children fundamentally understood the mechanics and principles and then moved on to more interesting math like algebra and geometry. Where you can see more real world applications by applying them to easily solve those word problems that we all hated as children. We really don't do a good job of teaching children how to think most of it is teaching them how to memorize. It's the whole concept of cramming for a test, memorize it just long enough to get past this test, then let it fall out of your brain.

I don't even know where to start with english and literature, I just muscled thru those but man that was like death to me, just not my interest at all. It's very evident in my writing that I was not very attentive in those classes. Thank goodness for spellcheck and a very pedantic highschool friend that did not mind proofreading and shaking his head at me, after each paragraph.

You don't need to memorize the times tables once you understand multiplication, but having fluency in being able to do that makes subsequent mathematics much easier (for example, I'm not sure how you could learn algebra without having a fluent ability to do arithmetic).

The times table seems like a perfect example to me of a GREAT thing to memorize. It's only 36 facts (2 through 9 times each other, knowing that ab==ba), and from then on you don't have to do repeated addition.

I hated school as well, but I think most things we studied have a purpose. Even limits are "useless," but mind-bending enough to possibly help you develop.

What I personally didn't like was reciting mathematical rules; Being able to apply them should be good enough.

Long division perhaps does teach you how to follow a complex algorithm by hand, but it's not at all necessary for the math curriculum at any stage from K-12 up to university.

It's somewhat out of fashion because a good sense of number is just as useful for dividing by hand, and more useful for understanding what's going on (plus, you do now always have a calculator in your pocket).

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