🚀 go-pugleaf

Gilles.Leblanc@f2.n255.z1.fidonet.org (Gilles Leblanc) writes:
>  Imagine the difficulty they would encounter 
>if they had to calculate with a pencil and paper a 7% tax (GST) on a good or 
>service and then have to add a 10 % provincial sales tax to that.

I think this is a bit of a red herring.  I agree that a student ought to
know how to do it -- i.e., that taking 7% means multiplying by 7/100,
and that that in turn means multiplying by 7 and moving the decimal point
over.  But in practice I'd sure rather use my calculator than try to
multiply by 7 out in the field if I were actually buying or selling some
good or service.  Even before calculators, I don't think anyone *really*
ever did such calculations -- instead they taped little charts to the
side of the cash register.

Instead of making kids work out such problems with pencil and paper, I'd
rather make them do instant rough estimates:  "Is 7% of $20 closer to
$1 or to $5?"  Or, "Is 7% of $1000 closer to $5 or to $50?"  The point
of the game is that you only get three seconds to answer, or maybe you
do it in competitive teams like College Bowl where the first one to answer
gets the point.  Along with this you do stuff like the paradigmatic
"how many grains of sand on the beach?"  Calculators won't interfere with
this kind of estimation work.