Should We Be Teaching Fractions?
May. 19th, 2021 01:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutThis is a very new idea of mine, so I am still exploring it. That’s very different from earlier ideas I have had along the same lines, such as, We Really Need to Stop It With Cursive, and, No More With the Clock Faces and Hands Already. I was opposed to cursive when I was a child learning it _because I knew about typewriters_. Printing is fine for short things, but if you need speed and volume, a keyboard is so much better. Cursive, shorthand, etc. — old skool.
Clock faces I didn’t really think about super hard until I was watching reading time off a clock face being taught to friends’ kids and later mine. Then I was like, seriously, Why Are We Doing This Anyway? Also, 24 hour time, please, any day now.
When I was trying to justify to myself why kids need to learn how to calculate with fractions yesterday, I came up short. Hard.
I know the standard rationale: cooking, anything involves English or Imperial like carpentry or blueprints or whatever, you need to be able to cope with fractions. Except I’ve been learning Dutch recipes for the last several (decade plus) years, and so I’ve spent a lot of time on websites converting from metric measurements (by weight, no less!) to something I can do. And honestly, I don’t see fractions in Euro cookbooks. I asked my husband about this idea, and he said, yeah, the English measurements are really going to screw you up, but you could do it in Europe, because everything there is measured in meters.
I’m not cuckoo here — I’m not looking to legislate pi to 3, or say that there is nothing between a couple of whole numbers. I’m here for an argument about representation. Specifically, tho, I’m here in favor of decimalization. A lot of old math books structure their problems carefully to make sure that in algebra, you may have fractions along the way, but you’ll get a satisfying whole number value for X or Y if you did the problem right. But honestly, that’s not how it works in the real world. And in the real world, you’re going to decimalize.
It’s amazing what a package deal this really is. If you decimalize everything — metric, monetary system, cooking measurements by weight instead of volume and grams for units, yeah, okay, the time keeping system is still a problem, but whatever — then fractions basically go away. We don’t need them. We could spend our time teaching things that are _actually_ _useful_, and which we don’t currently have time for.
Like, using keyboards well. Like, boolean algebra and discrete math.
A little addendum — like cursive, fractions and learning how to use them well, and, honestly, all those 60s in our time keeping system, existed to make _calculation easier_ in a world that (1) did not have a zero and (2) did not have a decimal. Keeping them around is hoarding. We really need to stop. We know better. We should do better.
Clock faces I didn’t really think about super hard until I was watching reading time off a clock face being taught to friends’ kids and later mine. Then I was like, seriously, Why Are We Doing This Anyway? Also, 24 hour time, please, any day now.
When I was trying to justify to myself why kids need to learn how to calculate with fractions yesterday, I came up short. Hard.
I know the standard rationale: cooking, anything involves English or Imperial like carpentry or blueprints or whatever, you need to be able to cope with fractions. Except I’ve been learning Dutch recipes for the last several (decade plus) years, and so I’ve spent a lot of time on websites converting from metric measurements (by weight, no less!) to something I can do. And honestly, I don’t see fractions in Euro cookbooks. I asked my husband about this idea, and he said, yeah, the English measurements are really going to screw you up, but you could do it in Europe, because everything there is measured in meters.
I’m not cuckoo here — I’m not looking to legislate pi to 3, or say that there is nothing between a couple of whole numbers. I’m here for an argument about representation. Specifically, tho, I’m here in favor of decimalization. A lot of old math books structure their problems carefully to make sure that in algebra, you may have fractions along the way, but you’ll get a satisfying whole number value for X or Y if you did the problem right. But honestly, that’s not how it works in the real world. And in the real world, you’re going to decimalize.
It’s amazing what a package deal this really is. If you decimalize everything — metric, monetary system, cooking measurements by weight instead of volume and grams for units, yeah, okay, the time keeping system is still a problem, but whatever — then fractions basically go away. We don’t need them. We could spend our time teaching things that are _actually_ _useful_, and which we don’t currently have time for.
Like, using keyboards well. Like, boolean algebra and discrete math.
A little addendum — like cursive, fractions and learning how to use them well, and, honestly, all those 60s in our time keeping system, existed to make _calculation easier_ in a world that (1) did not have a zero and (2) did not have a decimal. Keeping them around is hoarding. We really need to stop. We know better. We should do better.
no subject
Date: 2021-05-19 11:58 pm (UTC)Money is another weird one. There are kids growing up now who've probably never dealt with cash.
Ease, number sense
Date: 2021-05-20 03:29 am (UTC)Fractions _as they are taught_ seem to be pretty inimical to developing number sense, for most people. I’ve got lots of anecdata on this, but also there is some pretty deep literature on it.
I think it is really fascinating that areas where accuracy is super important got rid of fractions as quickly as possible AND decimalized (science, accounting). Fractions survive where errors are less catastrophic (cooking), and where it is easier to get away with blaming the victim of a terrible system.
The clock thing is a Whole Other Thing, and let me just say that all those weird fractions for telling time (a quarter of, a quarter after, half past) do _not_ translate cleanly into even other very close languages. If you want to actually meet someone at a particular time, the best plan is to specify it down to the minute, ideally in 24 hour time with leading zeros as needed, with time zone appended. I can see an argument for going straight to UMT, also.