Hacker News Reader

It's funny how in grade school the multiplication symbol is omitted, only to be (more confusingly replaced) by a period later on when the expressions get complicated.

I suspect it's the lack of arithmetic skill more than the conventions that are the heart of the problem. I think kids should be required to learn to do mental arithmetic before they're allowed to use calculators, but this may be impractical.

View on HN

I think kids should be required to learn X before they're allowed to do Y,

Clearly you were never a kid.

Why is it impractical? (It's the way we do it in South Korea.)

In the United States denying children access to things seems to be quite impractical :-)

I also worry that smart kids will work out that calculators are ubiquitous before they force themselves to become proficient at mental arithmetic (e.g. Google and Spotlight are both far more powerful calculators than anything I had access to as a student).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com