Reliance on Calculators...

[MinisterJay]

I remember the shock of my students' faces when I announced in Business Math, that they were not allowed to use calculators in class. I gave them a quiz after saying that. After grading the non-grade counting quiz, I thought to myself that I would hire one of them to be a cashier for a business, and the rest would be welcomed as customers. To help them out I started giving grouped tests, where different students got the same mathematical concepts testing, but the wording was changed to assist the different groups. Scores went up. Same exact math problems, just the words were changed. I watched some count on fingers, and even try to multiply on fingers. These were Seniors in High School. Our generation had times-table flash cards drilled into our memories, from 1 X 1 all the way to 13 X 13.

I started noticing that larger chain grocery stores and fast food restaurants started to cater to a population that does not know addition and subtraction to well. At one of local larger grocery stores, the screen actually shows what to give of each denomination of paper and coined currencies. They no longer trust that the cashier can give out $16.74; the screen shows 1 ten dollar bill, 1 five dollar bill, 2 quarters, 2 dimes, and 4 pennies. To help them even more, there are actually picture representation of each dollar bill type and coin type. AT some places, if something costed $17.52, it would freak them out if I gave them. $22.52. "You gave me too much," was often heard, while they tried to give me the 2 ones backs. I would have to tell them I was trying to get a 5 back.

I had a teenager once tell me that his youngest brother, who was five, was the smartest generation, yet to come because he knew how to use a smart phone. I told him that he was confusing intelligence with technological assistance.

Me personally, I still like using paper and pencil to figure out math solutions.

 

[Zebestian]

*is suspicious* This sounds like it should be a blog entry again, Jay. You didn't post this for the mod campaign, did you? XD
Anyway, most of the time calculators are used to either help solving more complicated problems to get stuff done quicker. At least that's what my impression is. Here where I live, cashiers have to count themselves when handing the customer the change. They are told how much it is by the register though, that's normal. I've never seen a cashier or server struggle with maths when I paid unless they were obviously new to the business but then they would only struggle with the register and not maths.
A line you frequently hear when shopping here is "do you got a [number] cent piece"? The other day I was getting some bakery goods and upon paying I was asked if I maybe had a 20 cent piece since the total was 8.20€ and I handed them a 10€ bill. Workers in retail over here are required to be able to do such simple math. And I've experienced this not only here in Germany but also in Poland, Spain, Italy and France. I haven't seen cash registers telling people what to hand back here. I agree that you should be able to do simple calculations in your head though. Makes for a good mind-training. ^_^

 

[MinisterJay]

It is a General Discussion piece, because we are discussing different ideas regarding us relying on calculators, but thanks for asking. Blogs, I reserve for telling my tales, since it is quiet in there most of the time. It might even end up in a cashiering game. I remember when the previous generations would do 'count back to you' system of cashiering. They would start at the amount of cost, and count back to the amount of funds presented. They would not say, "Your change is ...."; they would start with coinage and count up to the next whole dollar, and do the same with each bill denomination until they counted up to original amount of funds presented.

The days of having standard deviation charts and t-scores found in textbooks, are getting rarer. I must use calculators for that. :)

As for it being one of the moderator questions, I am not making it one. Not saying, another member, may be asking the harder questions...

 

[Zebestian]

I remember when the previous generations would do 'count back to you' system of cashiering.

Oh, we still do that here. Especially in restaurants that's common practice. And also when you pay small prices with high value bills, say for example 3.80€ with a 50€ bill. It's funny how such things differ from region to region. Here in Europe it's still common practice while you speak of "previous generations". :D

 

[MinisterJay]

We can learn from each about different cultures and regions, without directly asking. Thanks for enlightening me and others, that live in different areas. I prefer the way, of getting change, that you spoke of.

 

[HotfireLegend]

I have to say, I find it super weird that we still get tests with COMPLEX equations and the like for non-calculator usage. Sure, give simple stuff like 10 - 5 for cashiers and whatnot, but what's the point of giving someone sigma 5 root 72 to the power of 16 and tell them to give it in base 10 without a calculator? We HAVE calculators in our jobs - the best this does is improve numerical arithmetic for complex sums, but it's a waste of time now!

Oh and as for the cashier "I wanted 5 back" thing - that's kind of down to the cashier for not realizing that people can give "too much" for a different amount of change. The cashier's machine still tells you how much to give back. Eg $16 instead of $15 will give you $1.

 

[MinisterJay]

Wow, @HotfireLegend . The cashiering test is that hard? I was applying for a Waffle House management training position one time, and it had some hard mathematical equations to attempt to solve, without a calculator. I barely passed on the the high side. It had a low/high qualification range. If you scored too low, you were not hired. If you scored too high, you were not hired. The test was actually very useful. I was too analytical, and washed out in three months.

 

[Amysaurus]

As a general rule, I typically only use calculators if I'm dealing with exceptionally large numbers. As easy as it is to pull out my phone's calculator, it's easier to just use my head. It made my cashiering job a lot easier, lol.

I'm not sure if the teaching methods were just different when I moved between schools, but a lot of the students I used to tutor barely understood how to try more complex calculations in their head. They were way more reliant on calculators than my teachers had ever let me become. xD

 

[Macro]

I prefer calculators, but I usually do both when it comes to bills. My elementary teachers complained about using paper/pencil but it NEVER helped my memory or math skills in any way. I just wasted a lot of time doing pointless long division. Talk about boring! With more in depth math, I think it's silly not using a calculator.

I rarely use division in real life, and when I do, I'm going to be pulling out the calc.exe or IT-83 to save time. I used to hate math until I met an amazing physics professor. Now, I love it. I also love my TI-83 graphing calculator. Not a fan of Apple's crappy calculator though.

 

[Micro]

At one of local larger grocery stores, the screen actually shows what to give of each denomination of paper and coined currencies. They no longer trust that the cashier can give out $16.74; the screen shows 1 ten dollar bill, 1 five dollar bill, 2 quarters, 2 dimes, and 4 pennies. To help them even more, there are actually picture representation of each dollar bill type and coin type. AT some places, if something costed $17.52, it would freak them out if I gave them. $22.52. "You gave me too much," was often heard, while they tried to give me the 2 ones backs. I would have to tell them I was trying to get a 5 back..

as a cashier, this amazes and disturbs me very much. visual representations of the change you need to give? really?! that's plain overkill and encourages the cashiers to be lazy thinkers - their minds will quickly become dull and they'll just be...well, dumb. seriously, that is just sad. that would annoy me WAY too much, I think. ...though cashiering is annoying anyway, lol.

I personally like calculators though. even if I can do it with paper or something, I still prefer calculator just because it's convenient and I think it would be silly to spend more time fiddling with writing it on paper than using a calculator, if available - could use that extra time on some other productive activity (like getting my work done faster!) however, if I couldn't do those simple calculations myself, if needed, I would be pretty disappointed with myself.

in this day and age, when handy dandy tools are available at our fingertips at all times, it's difficult NOT to become lazy... but something like showing PICTURES of the exact change of what to give? that is just...wow. I think if you don't have to use your head at ALL at work it's going to be incredibly dull...

but I mean, if they are totally reliant on that then I think it's scary. like... ok maybe when they first start out it could be nice maybe? ..lol, but to use that as a handicap ALL THE TIME? yeah, no... it would just irritate me. I like learning new stuff.. lots of little simple things, especially. it's fun to ask questions and feel like you accomplish something when you get it right ...

....oops I'm rambling. I'm done. :D

 

[Cunechan]

...that's why everyone panics when our maths teacher tells us we're not allowed to use calculators in the exam. We are already in deeper maths and it just consumes too much time writing everything down on paper. It's like there are only 4-6 exercises for two hours anyway but it STILL takes a lot of time for every single one. If we're doing a small test or quiz without calculator we panic too but then it turns out I actually have no problem with using my head or pen and paper for calculating. I just get desperate when it comes to things like the pq calculation or polynomial. I mean guessing y=0, these are things I SERIOUSLY prefer letting my calculator do. I mean as in typing in and seeing if the result works XD
Reminds me we were forced to know 20^20, 19^19, etc for a class test once but I forgot everything lol

The thing with the cashiers shocks me. People should know how much change to give ?? This is so weird we'd probably never see something like this here (atleast I hope so). By the way I totally agree with @Kaimen. You explained it very well and exactly here XD