That sound you hear was my jaw hitting the floor and bouncing

[fpb]

A British TV news program has just reported - and reported is as a disciplinary, tightening-of-the-screws type proposal - that the British Government wants every child to be familiar with the times table by the time they are nine.

I don't think I come from an educational golden age. But in my childhood any child who had not memorized the times table by the time they were seven - the second year of school - would have been regarded as a culpable dunce and either made to repeat the year or sent to a special needs school.

EDITED IN: It seems from the responses to this entry that both British and American kids are expected to start learning the Table by their eighth year. OK, I didn't know that. I know I had it by my seventh, for a very simple reason - my family moved around a lot, and in my third year I changed school. And I remember very well knowing the Table by then. I was impressed by the beauty with which all the strings of numbers fitted in, an early lesson in the underlying logic of existence.

Comments

[bookwrm17.livejournal.com]

The times tables were introduced in the beginning of third grade in my (American) school, so when we were eight. We were supposed to have them all memorized by the start of fourth grade, by which time most of us would be nine.

Honestly, it seems like whether you know your times tables by age seven or age ten is less important than the fact that you've covered all the basic math skills by the time you leave primary school.