the only legitimately positive advances¶

This is one of the only legitimately positive advances in education in recent years. The goal is to teach kids not to simply memorize abstract, disconnected mathematical "facts," like a parrot reciting "Twelve minus three equals nine!" but to actually understand the operations. https://t.co/J6pgScYucB The purpose of this exercise is to reflexively see numbers as composed of their parts, existing in relation to each other, allowing them to "move" them freely and transform them. "3" is not just a static object, but a product of the addition of 1 and 2, reversible at will. 12 is not just an object: among other things, it's 10 + 2. 12 - 2 is 10, so 12 - 2 - 1 is 10 - 1 which is 9. Since 3 is 2 + 1, 12 - 3 is the same as 12 - 2 (which is 10) and then another - 1. If that sounds complicated, it's because you're unaware that that's exactly what your brain is automatically doing, once you've become practiced in math. These exercises aren't about forcing kids to go through extraneous steps, it's about reinforcing those mental pathways. If practiced correctly, these steps get integrated seamlessly into a growing number of operations, making simple math as inconsequential as language or reflexive motor function, and more complex math suddenly becomes achievable. (For my Marxist comrades out there, this style of education could be accurately called "dialectical mathematics" 😘)