Does anybody watch "Numbers"? I heard a bit about it on NPR and it sounds kinda good but then how come I never heard of it?

We actively teach both these (and various other) strategies to kids in primary school, with a lot of emphasis on the fact that different people will favour different strategies, and that so long as your method is a sound one, it's all cool - that there isn't One True Way of working out a problem. We do a lot of setting them problems and then focusing on HOW they got the answer, rather than what the answer was. it helps both in terms of picking up handy ways of doing things from other kids, and also in terms of identifying where you're getting mixed up, if you've got the wrong answer.

I was in the middle math group all through elementary school because I just couldn't do pencil and paper computation. Well, I could, but not well enough for the teachers. I found a bunch of my school papers from second and third grade a little while ago, and honestly, I'm pretty certain that most of my issues were actually problems with writing (which I'd always had trouble with -- not the composing words part of writing, but the actual physical stuff of holding a pencil and making the right marks on the paper.) A whole lot of the answers I got wrong were because I misread a number I marked down in one step when I got to the next step. (Also, the teachers for the top math group were always the old-fashioned strict sort of teachers, and I did very badly with those -- any hint of criticism and I'd just shut down.)

In third grade, we were given a sheet of all 100 one-by-one digit multiplication problems once a week, and given five minutes to do it. I couldn't. I just couldn't. Tried it every week, sometimes got really close, but never got every answer written and correct. We had to be able to do it at least once by the end of the year. After my zillionth fit of crying and frustration and "I'm stupid! I'll never be able to do it!" my mother decided that enough was enough, she knew that I was good at math, and this was a matter of, as she called it in many many conversations with me, "learning to play the game." She knew I was good at memorizing things. She knew that the problems were in the same order every week. She told me to just memorize the first twenty answers in order (which I did, no problem), write them down in the first twenty seconds, and that would leave me with four minutes and forty seconds to do eighty problems, which I was able to do.

BEHOLD the man who survived 5 heart attacks! MARVEL as he rakes leaves this weekend! (I shit you not; he plans to rake this weekend, and I seriously doubt anything will derail his plans.) He is one goddamn tenacious man of steel, I tell you what.

Yay for Man of Steel!

The digits. Blinvisible chalk board all the way.

Huh. Interesting. I frequently visualize words (like, sometimes, when it feels like a word is on the tip of my tongue but I can't quite remember it, I can SEE it as if it's written in the air in front of me, but can't translate that into the spoken word), but never digits. I just tried doing a problem that way in my head, and it was way more difficult than the way I usually do it.

I have trouble visualizing anything. Even, like, a friend's face I can only get for a flash.

I sometimes do the writing in air thing, but it's much more for the kinetic feel of writing than for visualizing. I think I might use that for multiplication but it takes a lot of concentration.

We talk about Numbers.

Ask Fay about that show.

Am I the only one who doesn't do math beyond the basics in my head? I just grab pen and paper, which 99% of the time I have readily to hand anyway.

Does anybody watch "Numbers"?

Do you like smart Jewish guys with soulful eyes? Because it has a plethora, and of many ages--David Krumholz, Rob Morrow, Judd Hirsch. Also Diane Farr and Peter MacNicol. Lots of cuteness and some pretty and fascinating math metaphors. The FBI plots are almost all incredibly far-fetched, but I tend to handwave all that stuff for the rest of it.

Tep--my Grandma had 5 heart attacks, the last in her mid-70s. She lived to be 96.

Sox and my g'father had at least 8 heart attacks and lived to be 96. Stubborn doesn't begin to describe him.

Teppy, aka Daughter of Steel!

Sox, as for the birthday gift panic, you and sister Sue should confab about what you want to do for each other's families. My sisters and I do not buy things for the brothers-in-law because it is too difficult to come up with something year after year, and while they get me b'day presents I don't necessarily buy anything for them (because I'm buying for all their children). It frees me up to only buy something when I really think they'd like it, instead of under obligation. On the other hand, out of the goodness of their little black hearts, my sisters often find something for my DH to put under the xmas tree, otherwise he wouldn't have any presents. And he likes toys so he's easy to buy things for.

Otherwise, I am a big fan of the gifts for which you don't have to find space for -- a dinner out, a gift certificate to a B&B somewhere, etc.

I'm glad your dad is home, Steph.

I'm trying to figure out what I do for multiplication. 36 * 24. 20*36 is 72 with a 0 at the end, so 720. 25 * 36 is 720 plus half of 360, so that's 720 + 180, which is 900. Then subtract 36 to get 864. But that was all with numbers that I knew a bunch about.

31 * 58. 31 * 100 is 31000. Half of that is 31 * 50, so 31 * 50 is 15500. Then 31 * 8 is 248, so 31 * 58 is 15748.

Huh. So I think what method I use depends on what the numbers are.