I am a math teacher, more specifically a high school math teacher. I've been teaching math for 15 years. So much has changed in that time. When I started teaching, I taught in a portable...now I have my very own classroom. Cell phones were not for teens...now every kid has one ( Smart phones, with Data plans and texting, e-mail capability). Calculators were not used to much until grade 10,11 and 12. Now my 10 year old uses them in her class. We got graphing calculators in 1997...we are still using the same ones today ( we try and get the kids who need them to purchase their own) TI 83 all the way! Their phones do more then my old graphing calculator. The curriculum has changed three time ( and we've needed a new textbook each time for all 5 grades). One thing I have noticed is that some ( not all ) of my students can't do the basics...3x3=? 9/3=?. The basics of multiplication/division/adding and subtracting. When I was a kid in elementary school I had to stand up and recite my multiplication tables aloud. We all did. Now I ask a student to solve 4x5 and they need to pull out their calculator. There are times that I don't think knowing the basics is so bad...although 9/3=2 is maybe a "new" math that I'm just not familiar with.
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