[BITList] English teenagers 'are most illiterate in the developedworld', report reveals | Education News | News | The Independent

[Michael Feltham]

Hugh,

Too many calculators hence no Mental Arithmetic !

Mike
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> On 29 Jan 2016, at 23:22, HUGH <chakdara at btinternet.com> wrote:
> 
> Mike,
> 
> I live in good old decimalised Scotland, quoth a chap, scoffing at the "English" 12 times table.  I did them to 12 and had it drummed into me and it's still there. When I joined John G Kincaid in Greenock in 1949 I entered a decimalised phase - they built B&W Danish engines. When I started evening classes I had to relearn the duodecimal system, so I was decimal during the day and duodecimal at night.  When I joined Scotts in Greenock I went back to duodecimal, drawing scales 1" to a foot, etc, and when I moved to Denmark I went back to 1:10 etc.
> 
> Back in the 60s/70s a friend taught engineering at university level here, and he complained too many of the student input were hopeless at basic arithmetic and algebra, so it's not a new phenomenon.
> 
> Hugh. 
> 
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