I took my 11-year-old grandson to a Scout meeting. After we returned to his house, Jason said he still had a little bit of homework.

As he pulled out his packets, I told him I’d sit with him and answer any questions he might have. He had a few math problems to solve, and I lost my confidence.

I’m not a math whiz. In fact, I’m barely competent when it comes to math. I have a hard time remembering numbers, and I beg people to double-check me when it comes to anything related to numbers.

At first, the homework didn’t seem difficult. His class was learning long division, and he said he understood most of the work. It’s been years, probably decades, since I had to figure out long division without the aid of a calculator.

I understand why elementary-aged students need to understand the process of long division as it’s the next step after addition, subtraction and multiplication.

I looked at the worksheet, and the first problem seemed easy enough – 212 divided by 4.

I thought about the process – four doesn’t divide into the 2 but it can work with 21. That’s 4 times 5 equals 20. That leaves a remainder of 1. Bring down the 2 and that makes 12. Three times 4 equals 12. Problem solved.

At least I hoped that was right. I double checked using my phone and, yep, 53 was the right answer. I looked at Jason’s paper. He had drawn boxes and circles to count out the numbers. He was also running out of room in the box provided on the worksheet.

Fifteen minutes later, he’d solved the first problem.

My heart went out to him.

Old-school ways aren’t always the best – imagine churning butter – but this “new” math seems cumbersome and time wasting.

Old-school math put an astronaut on the moon, and the tools scientists used, besides their brains, were slide rules and adding machines.

As I watched Jason slug through three more problems, using lines, boxes, circles and other ways to break apart the numbers, I resisted telling him that as an adult, he’d probably never have to manually use long division.

A laptop, computer or phone can give him the answer in seconds. A $5 calculator will calculate percentages and figure out the square root of a number.

There’s a long list of why we have to learn how to break processes down, and I understand the philosophy. My grandmother taught me how to sew. She explained my sewing machine could hem, make a buttonhole and satin stitch, but if I ever needed to repair a rip or tear, I’d know how because she taught me the basic stitches.

Because I went to a Catholic elementary school with nuns at the chalkboard, I can diagram a sentence in my sleep.

I don’t think there’s a person under the age of 40 who can diagram a sentence, but I’m glad I understand the role each word in a sentence plays.

Diagramming might be fun for some of us, but it doesn’t take the place of a fluid vocabulary and knowing the parts of speech.

Knowing long division can help a student understand how numbers are broken down. But making an easy math problem difficult doesn’t make sense to me.

Ah, but I sound like an old codger. All I need is a corn-cob pipe and a rocking chair to finish the scene.

Lord only knows what Jason will have to go through when the teacher presents the next step in long division – a remainder.

From what I saw, he’ll need another three sheets of paper.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.