x +10=30
The equation above seems pretty simple. Just subtract ten from 30 to get 20 and that equals x. Can you believe that there are fifth-graders that don't know how to solve that without using a calculator? I wouldn't have believed it unless I had witnessed it for myself.
I was working in a classroom, with a small group of kids. One of the kids was having difficulty with this particular problem. I was trying to explain how to do the problem and get the answer. The student could not compute the answer to 30 minus ten in their head. They were in fifth grade. When I tried to break the problem down, the student got even more confused. They couldn't even compute zero minus zero. And forget about three minus one.
This situation drives home the fact that we are giving our students calculators in first grade to do problems such as one plus one. Students today are not encouraged to learn how math works. We want to pride ourselves on our students "doing" algebra in fourth grade, but that is irrelevant if the student can't even perform their multiplication tables with any proficiency. What I say is this--take away the calculators and make the kids think about how the math works, and after they know how to do math, give them a calculator.
For the record, I graduated high school in 1994, and I wasn't allowed to use a calculator until the second half of my senior year. Until that time, calculators were forbidden in math. Physics and Chemistry were different stories.
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