Little need for calculators in middle schools

Time to beat a dead horse... or in this case, reincarnate it and then have at it again.  Yes, we're going there: calculators in the classroom.  This debate was a full scale battle for ten years once the adoption of the 1991 National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) Curriculum and Evaluation Standards recommended that "every teacher at every level promote the use of calculators to enhance mathematics instruction."  But for some strange reason, the outcries seem to have just faded away.  No recent articles or arguments have been posted since the early 2000's.  Why is that?  It was such a heated debate, it seemed almost as never-ending as the Mac vs. PC situation we have at our hands today.

But in all seriousness, let's look at this topic from a fresh perspective after a few new years of technological advancement, which, as we know, is leaps and bounds ahead of where we were from just the turn of the century.  Looking at one of the older articles from 2002 which, at the time, maintained the discussion, both sides seemed pretty even in their respective weights.  For example, a proponent could argue that graphing calculators help students understand calculus break-even points when intersecting two variable graphs of cost and revenue.  That is very reasonable and easily defended.  Instead, let's discuss the use of calculators for simple mathematical calculations that, until as of late, were all learned on a multiplication times tables in primary school.

In the Teachers Manual of one of the math textbooks that a Washington State School District uses, the following is explained on the topic of long division: "Mastery of the intricacies such as algorithms is a huge endeavor, one that experience tells us is doomed to failure for many students.  It is simply counter-productive to invest many hours of previous class time on such algorithms.  The mathematical payoff is not worth the cost, particularly because quotients can be found quickly and accurately with a calculator."

Weren't education authorities supposed to be optimistic?  Now, it's great to be a proponent for technology to help understand a desired concept in a given topic, but for some reason this statements jumps out as a bit concerning.  This may be too brash of an assumption, but isn't there a large difference between using software to plot and analyze a set of data than to thoughtlessly plug in the problem and immediately receive the answer?

With strong statements such as these shifting the calculator paradigm, these little super-computers have become rampant in middle schools where typically a foundation of algebra is nurtured and maintained. So how does that affect our students that go to college today? In an October 2009 report released by ENLACE Florida, "over 20,000 state university students in Florida either withdrew or did not receive a passing grade in key math courses required for them to fulfill university requirements during the 2007-2008 academic year."  In other words, these are not math-heavy courses that require terribly advanced logical or mathematical reasoning.  These are rudimentary basic courses like College Algebra and Trigonometry that any student, regardless of discipline should be able to pass and succeed in.  Now, please don't be that critic who gleefully points to Florida Virtual Schools as the scapegoat for a figure like this without considering the facts.  All states have pass/fail rates similar to this.  States like California and Michigan are concerned about the very same issues.  Just as the New York Times points out that math aptitude was higher before the passing of "No Child Left Behind", we are beginning to see the aftermath that the act has had on a state's ability to oversee their curriculum (inside and outside of mathematics).

Unless that is, the goals of math education are changing before our very eyes. In other words, should we even have students understand how numbers work?  Because if not, then let's move on to concepts and story problems and forget about algorithms while calculators do all of that "mish-mash."  But then what happens to trigonometry, to algebra, to calculus?  Most lesson plans within these math subjects thrive on a solid familiarity of simple math concepts and calculations.  When trying to FOIL, does one take out her calculator to find out what 13 * 3 equals?  It takes a student twice as long to do such a simple process when thoughtlessly punching the numbers into a calculator.  I've seen it… even in a rather well-off 8th grade class.  How disheartening it was to know these students were going to be taking calculus one day when a student tugged on my sleeve and pointed to a double digit multiplication problem asked, "How do I multiply this out?"

Outside of square roots and logarithms (Not mental math), let's get serious about the level of usage of these potent little pieces of technology in the non-high school classrooms.  They are extremely beneficial to understanding high school and college math concepts, but is it really all that justifiable in the long run to save your own skin as a middle school teacher for a student to have good grades because of using a calculator, only to later let the student struggle in college calculus?