I was at the drug store the other day. I purchased a single item that cost $2.14 including tax. I gave the cashier, a very attractive young woman whose name tag read Sierra, a five dollar bill. She punched it up before I was finished reaching into my back pack for 14 cents.
She stared at the 14 cents blankly. She asked me what eighty six minus fourteen was. I told her. She asked me what one hundred minus eighty six was. I told her. She asked me what one hundred minus fourteen was. I told her. I was starting to get a little confused myself, at this point. Sierra continued to stare at my fourteen cents.
"It's OK Sierra", I said. "Just give me back my 14 cents."
She gave me back my 14 cents, then gave me the $2.86 that her register told her was my change. We all learned to make change when I was young. It's not about adding or subtracting. It's about counting backward. It's not something anybody needs to do anymore. Why should poor Sierra know how? She probably knows how to do a lot of stuff I don't.
3 comments:
I substitute taught in the local schools for a couple of years. I did some work with underachieving students in a program called AVID.
Now, I was pretty sharp in school. But the kids I tried to teach or tutor were absolute rocks. I don't want to drive on a bridge designed by our future generation.
It is amazing how smart we get with age. I am sure that some old guy thirty plus years ago was wondering what they were teaching in our schools.
You've got that right, SS, as we age we get smarter.
Back in the olden days, my dad tells me of studying Latin and Shakespeare.
I can't write to save my soul, but I'm death on algebra. Thanks to that kindly old gentleman, Rickover.
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