While I agree that it is good to learn to do math without a calculator, it's not necessarily the case that the teachers who said "you won't have a calculator with you all the time" didn't think that was the exact reason. Also, there's nothing wrong with just stating the real reason if that's what they really believed.

and unless you're carrying one of those solar powered calculators in your pocket, how are you gonna charge your pocket calculator in the post apocalyptic era? You gonna waste guzzoline to run your car to charge your phone?

I do it in my head and then on a calculator because I don't trust my head to do it correctly

I had a coworker go get a calculator to put in, I shit you not, 10+190

I remember being surprised I could afford a calculator watch. First time I learned about them as a kid, I assumed they were some unattainable, bleeding edge tech.

I get being annoyed by the excuse when your kid, but it's bizarre seeing adults still harping on this decades later.

You couldn't use a calculator in math class for the same reason you couldn't use a segway in gym class. Because there's a lot more going on in a math class than just teaching you how to enter the correct answer.

Like... presumably most people here took some college of some kind, it shouldn't be hard to grasp that education is a complex and multifaceted thing. It was never just about getting every answer right.

Yeah. You'll probably have access to a calculator these days, but that doesn't mean it's not worth knowing some basic arithmetic. Playing around with arithmetic is a good way to gain an understanding of the fundamentals and have a better sense of what the operations mean and how they work, which helps even when you do have a calculator.

Yeah, I remember being told this in 2005. Granted phones then were just phones with the calculator program built in because its an easy thing to tack on that costs basically nothing to add. I had a cell phone by then that was basically my own home line (it was always just at home for friends to call me), but like even then adults were largely expected to have a phone of their own. A few years later the 1st iPhone came out.

My parents and grandparents will routinely give me directions to the restaurant we're all going to. In the past I tried to stop them as I can never remember them anyway and certainly don't use the same landmarks. Now I just nod my head and pretend like I got it all on the first try and then just use Google maps like a sane person.

I mean I agree, but also can see the advantage of asking someone who seems like a local if you're confused about the transit system or if you took a wrong turn and just want to get some place without further hassle.

Some people just cant navigate, not much help in google if you don't understand what direction it is telling you to go.

It should be noted that while chat services that many use require low bandwidth, sometimes on throttled speed it's not enough to even make a basic Google search.

It is likely that the person you are talking to already used up their high speed mobile internet and now is running on throttled. Searching something up can take a minute or two in that state. Opening up a website or navigation becomes straight up impossible.

I suffer from that problem frequently

For people whose childhood didn't have an internet, it makes sense. Many are more comfortable getting information the way they used to. Even though I grew up in the 80s, I prefer to avoid having to interact with people when possible, so being able to use the internet for information was a godsend.

Theres a few schools of thought when it comes to teaching math. Theres the camp that thinks that you should see 285 X 342 and figure out in your head its 97,470. Then theres the other group that goes, well we just need to teach them the concept and then the students apply it. Its people in the first camp that said you'd never have a calculator and just isn't a realistic take on the world anymore. Very rarely do I have to sit down and remember what sin(30) is, but I can still do the trig work I've needed in my day job as a software developer.

No, we teach arithmetic and then once you know it you can use a calculator

Naa it's just bad explanation on why. Use a calculator but a brain will know if you put it in right. Kind of like that scene om starship troopers and the Knife.

" or the math is so simple that you really don't need a calculator." That was the math they were trying to get you to remember and know how to figure out.

As a senior software engineer with a degree in electrical engineering, I'll 99% of the time pull up a python shell to do simple arithmetic. Or Google "1 day in minutes"

They are. A lot of the new math curriculum my kid took in elementary school was exactly about that. Estimating, quick ways to calculate things, and sort of an underlying grasp of what it all means vs just memorizing multiplication tables or something. So much better than the bullshit way they taught me 40 years ago.

On a semantics level it may be even more true now. Of course you're not going to have an actual calculator in your pocket, why would you when you can have a smartphone

Examples?