Don't Back Down

I'm helping Nathan with his homework last night, and he starts talking about regrouping. This is simple addition, folks. Two columns (occasionally three). Add one, if it's greater than 10, carry the tens digit to the next column. I didn't really think it was that hard.

Apparently the new theme is to arrange each item in "groups". If you've got ten of one group, you circle the group and add one larger group to the next column. Repeat as necessary. At the end, you just count the items that are left over in the column (in other words, the items that haven't been grouped and moved to the next).

The result is that no one ever needs to cound higher than ten. If you get ten, you circle and move those ten to the next column. If you get another ten, repeat. Finally you're left with some number less than ten, which you count as the result of the column.

As you move from one column to the next, the process is repeated. When you get ten, move it to the next column, and repeat until there's a number less than ten. Eventually you'll run out of numbers, and you've only ever had to count to ten.

Is this really necessary? I mean how hard is it to count a stack of numbers and carry the tens digit to the next column? Maybe even that is much more difficult than what they used to do, as I recall parents making fun of our new math when I was in school. I guess they used to do it in their heads. Which is cool.

When you get right down to it, I suppose the idea is to make the process as easy as possible by allowing even children who can only count to ten to count virtually any number, one group at a time. It's just going to take them a heck of a lot longer to figure it out.

For what it's worth, I taught Nathan how to count the column and carry the tens digit to the next column. He caught on to that right away. Then we had to figure out the regrouping thing, which really seemed to make him stumble. The problem with addressing the lowest common denominator is that that is exactly what you get at the end.