It can be a upsetting experience to help a 7th grader with his math homework. 17 is 23% of what number? Sometimes, my help is not needed but when it is, I should be able to at least look at what he has done to work out the question and give approval if it is correct. There was a time when I did such problems easily and correctly. I didn’t even use a calculator or a spreadsheet. Now I have to be on guard to be sure that what I am thinking is right so I don’t approve work that is wrong or put him to re-working what is already correct.
It may be that I am indeed a little slower than I used to be, but I am inclined to think that years and years of not having to do such calculation has resulted in a feeling of unfamiliarity with percentages. So many years in which I have been a productive citizen, neither arrested for crime nor accused of mental infirmity, seem to be evidence that maybe such problems are not part of many people’s lives. If they aren’t, the question arises: Is it important that a 7th grader be able to do such work? The question has already been asked several times by my 7th grader. He seems to be more comfortable wallowing in a tendency to not work on them than he is getting them done.
I don’t like to lie to him. I don’t want to say that my life ever once depended on being able to work out the answer to percentages. It hasn’t. Even more than questioning whether it is important to be able to do such problems, I question whether it is valuable to successfully work out dozens or hundreds of them. True, working out percentages keeps him off the streets and helps him avoid e-smoking and pharm parties where kids take random pills from somebody’s medicine cabinet. Such problems, if you dislike them, have the old advantage that, like hitting oneself in the head with a hammer, it feels so good when you stop. I have completed the 7th grade and have more or less stopped working percents. He is looking forward to that day.
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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
