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fpbA 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.
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.
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no subject
Date: 2011-12-17 12:09 am (UTC)