I tend to learn how to spell words by seeing them, and having read a lot, I have a decent vocabulary. I can spell "eschatology" and "anachronism" and "absquatulate" off the bat. My spell check doesn't even recognize that last one, but take my word or Google's - it's real.
To spell "arithmetic" I actually had to look it up. Why? Because I never see it.
There are other places I never see arithmetic, and when I say that, I mean the practice, not the word. Let me explain. In my math class, on the first day, my math professor asked for our math backgrounds. Pretty much the entire class said that they didn't like math, and I was also guilty - the very word "calculus" sends a shiver of intimidation through me. I remember being a kid whining over my pre-algebra and driving my engineer daddy to distraction. It's not something I'm particularly confident with.
This is several classes later, after my professor became the 924th person to tell me I overthink things. From him it seems kind of rich, given his level of observation, as you'll see. We were talking before class, and into the beginning, and we got onto the topic of people not liking math. I became his victim very quickly.
This is several classes later, after my professor became the 924th person to tell me I overthink things. From him it seems kind of rich, given his level of observation, as you'll see. We were talking before class, and into the beginning, and we got onto the topic of people not liking math. I became his victim very quickly.
"I've seen you! You do all your calculations by hand! Don't even use the calculator! I notice these things..." He stabbed his finger at one of my classmates. "Do you like math?" She shook her head dumbly. "You don't do the figures on paper, you just punch it into a calculator, right?" She nodded.
"Because," he said triumphantly, "that's what people who don't like math do! You actually do have a thing for math."
It would have been useless to argue that doing it on paper is actually faster for me, like navigating through a hard copy Bible instead of my Bible app on my iPod (which is why I always carry a hard version). What I can argue is that I don't want to lose the ability to do math by hand - if I don't remember how to do it, I can't teach it.
The point? Too many people can't do arithmetic nowadays - calculators make that skill unnecessary, but it's a dangerous precedent leading to scary levels of innumeracy. The fact that doing it on paper is seen as meaning I have a "thing" for arithmetic is mind-blowing (because I don't). And I bet a bunch of them can't spell it, either.
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