anyone know of or have an 18 year old unschooler who can't do multiplication?

[Serendipity]

just trying to settle a friendly debate with dh:

[artgoddess]

No but I have a friend who missed the month they did times tables in third grade and she can't do them still, at 30 years old.

She is otherwise a very intelligent woman, who owns a calculator and functions just fine at her high powered job.

[Serendipity]

Originally Posted by artgoddess

No but I have a friend who missed the month they did times tables in third grade and she can't do them still, at 30 years old.

She is otherwise a very intelligent woman, who owns a calculator and functions just fine at her high powered job.

wow! she can't recite the table or she actually cannot multiply?

[Dana Hoffman]

What do you mean by "knows how to multiply"?

Knowing that 4X5 equals 20 because you memorized it is one kind of "know"...

Knowing that 4X5 means 5, four times, and being able to figure what that is is another way to "know"...

Most unschooling teens I know are the second kind of "knowing", but don't actually have their multiplication tables memorized...

Dana
unschooling mama to Lauren, 15, Otto, 9.5, and new little one due in May!

[wonderwahine]

Originally Posted by artgoddess

No but I have a friend who missed the month they did times tables in third grade and she can't do them still, at 30 years old.

She is otherwise a very intelligent woman, who owns a calculator and functions just fine at her high powered job.

24yr old public school grad who was taught multiplication numerous times here ...........i need a calculator to figure it out

[cottonwood]

I don't know any personally, but I know of two. The first that comes to mind is Laurie Chancey, who is currently pursuing her PhD. She didn't know multiplication before she was a teenager, and didn't know how to do division before she was 18. She talks about it here: http://www.chancey.info/

The second was the husband of an online acquaintance of mine. He had been unschooled and knew very little math before starting college; he had just never been interested in it before that. When he started school he took a remedial math class and -- I guess he was finally ready for it -- he loved it so much he went on to become a math major. Their children are unschooled.

So yeah, it's certainly possible! The question is, why does it matter?

[lakesuperiormom]

well, i was homeschooled..not exactly to the extent of unschooling, but somewhat and i can recite my times tables and understand what it means to multiply..not exactly what you were looking for, but i had to chime in.

[artgoddess]

Originally Posted by fourlittlebirds

So yeah, it's certainly possible! The question is, why does it matter?

I'm curious too.

[Cassiopeia]

It seems like it would be pretty hard to get by not knowing it at all. Like someone said, 2x3 and the like are pretty intuitive and are encountered too often not become part of someone's knowledge. So while I could believe someone might not know the label "multiplication", I find it difficult to believe they don't know the concept.

[Lillian J]

Well, I can't say as I've ever gone around asking people, 18 or otherwise, whether they can do multiplication , but I can't imagine why it would be a problem to learn it in no time at all if they wanted to. Here's a fascinating article by David Albert - Just Do the Math!

Excerpt:

"I had just explained how the Sudbury Valley School - a democratically managed, child-directed learning environment that has been around for almost 40 years - has demonstrated repeatedly that a child could learn math - all of it grades K through 12 - in eight weeks. Average (if there is such a thing), normal (never met one), healthy children, hundreds of them, learned it all, leading to admissions to some of the leading colleges and universities in the nation." - Lillian

[Lillian J]

Originally Posted by Cassiopeia

It seems like it would be pretty hard to get by not knowing it at all. Like someone said, 2x3 and the like are pretty intuitive and are encountered too often not become part of someone's knowledge. So while I could believe someone might not know the label "multiplication", I find it difficult to believe they don't know the concept.

Yes - exactly what I was thinking, and I'd even think some the "facts" would become part of your bag of tricks or easy to quickly figure out - just because it's such an intuitive thing when you get to pushing numbers around in your mind while figuring out things in your daily life. - Lillian

[Dar]

Originally Posted by Lillian J

Well, I can't say as I've ever gone around asking people, 18 or otherwise, whether they can do multiplication , but I can't imagine why it would be a problem to learn it in no time at all if they wanted to. Here's a fascinating article by David Albert - Just Do the Math!

Excerpt:

"I had just explained how the Sudbury Valley School - a democratically managed, child-directed learning environment that has been around for almost 40 years - has demonstrated repeatedly that a child could learn math - all of it grades K through 12 - in eight weeks. Average (if there is such a thing), normal (never met one), healthy children, hundreds of them, learned it all, leading to admissions to some of the leading colleges and universities in the nation." - Lillian

Is there any evidence for this beyond his assertion? I'm familiar article about a group of 9-12 year olds learning K-6 math after twenty contact hours (which actually took 10 weeks - they met twice a week for an hour, and in between they did homework). Still, it seems to me that the average 9-12 year old would have intuited a whole lot of this stuff by then anyway, without any formal work in the area. They wouldn't be learning much that was "new", just more formal algorithms for stuff they'd already been exposed to.

The same isn't going to be true of algebra, geometry, trig, calculus... it's just not. This stuff is new, first off - and just because you can learn something in say, 5 hours a week over 8 weeks doesn't mean you can also learn it in one 40-hour week. Retention would suffer, first off, and a student wouldn't be familiar anough with the concepts to use them effectively an hour later. And, finally, it's not what I've seen with teens and young adults. They can move more quickly than schooled kids, but I've never seen K-12 in 8 weeks, with a kid who has never formally studied math.

Dar

[Lillian J]

Originally Posted by Dar

Is there any evidence for this beyond his assertion?

I don't know - there must be something somewhere that tells more, but I'm just assuming the class wasn't in-depth. The point, to me, is that all those drills and tests and drudgery that are imposed in the childhood years are not necessary in order for a child to be able to tackle real math later in a successful way. Lillian

[Dar]

Do you mean the K-6 class? That was in-depth - he used an old, very traditional math text, IIRC. I wasn't clear about whether Dave was talking about a class or more of a private tutoring situation.

I guess I don't think that hyperbole is the best way to make this point. I mean, unschooling is cool enough if you stick to the facts - the things that really happen - rather than the things someone imagines could happen.

Dar

[Daisie125]

I don't know my times tables. I understand the concept of multiplying, but I need a calculator for anything above 3's.

Buuuuut algebra was my best subject... so it's not that I'm an idiot I just can't memorize to save my life.

[Lillian J]

I just took David Albert's word for what he seemed to be well acquainted with - he said they'd done it repeatedly. I didn't think of that as hyperbole, although I did assume the high school end of it wasn't in depth. I don't know, but I'll sure ask him about it the next time I run into him (although, come to think of it, I can't imagine where that might be.)

- Lillian

[Serendipity]

interesting responses, thanks ladies. my dh was (is) concerned that ds6 will be an adult and not know how to do multiplication. dh is very math minded, loves it and its important to him that our son have a good math foundation so that should he want to do something math-y in his life later on, he can. i was just saying that i think he'd learn it naturally because it seems impossible not to. i can't recite the times tables either, but i can figure it out if i need to.

[Dar]

Originally Posted by Lillian J

I just took David Albert's word for what he seemed to be well acquainted with - he said they'd done it repeatedly. I didn't think of that as hyperbole, although I did assume the high school end of it wasn't in depth. I don't know, but I'll sure ask him about it the next time I run into him (although, come to think of it, I can't imagine where that might be.)

- Lillian

Welll... he says they do it repeatedly, but then he talks about the K-6 thing, and then goes into his mathematical calculation of how long it would hypothetically take, based on how long he thinks schooled kids actually spend learning. To me it sounded like he said that it happened all the time but then gave supporting evidence that really just showed that he believed it was hypothetically possible... I mean, do you know any kids who have learned K-12 math in 8 weeks? It's hard to convince people to take unschooling seriously when we make statements like that and can't back them up, and this one sounds really implausible.

dar

[Roar]

Originally Posted by granolapunk

dh is very math minded, loves it and its important to him that our son have a good math foundation so that should he want to do something math-y in his life later on, he can.

Has your dh offered to do math with your son - what was your son's reaction?

I guess my position as a parent would be I don't really care about what other people do. What works for our family? It sounds like math is important to your husband and I see no reason why your commitment to unschooling should carry more weight than your husband's belief about math. I would try to find ways math can be included.

And, to answer your question - yes, I've met barely literate kids who have been unschooled (and I've met brilliant, self motivated well educated ones too).

[Momily]

I think this has to be hyperbole. Not neccessarily the concept that a child who hasn't had formal math instruction could catch up quickly, but that a bright child without any learning problems that could interfere with math learning could make it to high school age without acquiring Kindergarten math skills.

I teach elementary special ed and when I think of the key skills in Kindergarten: That the order in which we count is key, and that order is. That when we count we match one item to one word, and the last number we say has meaning. How to understand words like more and less, same and different. How to solve simple word problems that involve combining and separating sets. That coins have names and specific values and what they are. How to use a calendar to plan future events. What "a half" means. The names of shapes. That some objects look the same on each side and we call them symmetrical. How to make and repeat a pattern. How to recognize a whole bunch of symbols including 1 and 2 digit numbers, and the plus, minus and equal sign.

Seriously? They're saying that kids made it high school age and didn't know how to count objects, or what someone means when they offer you half and apple, or how to use a measuring cup when cooking, or if I ask for 3 cookies and they want 4 how many to fetch from the kitchen? Because if they had those skills then they weren't at a Kindergarten level.

My guess is that, even if the upper grade part of this is true (e.g. the went through all of algebra and geometry in 20 hours, something I think might be exageration as well) that the kids started with all of Kindergarten and 1st grade math skills except maybe for a few discrete skills involving the use of symbols (e.g. they could solve single step addition and subtraction problems, but might not know how to write a number sentence to go with it, they have a great sense of time in terms of tomorrow vs. an hour ago and what 5 minutes really mean but haven't completely mastered telling time on an analog clock).

Just my own thoughts.