Elementary School Arithmetic – Sad Modern trends
W ith progress of science and knowledge one would have expected that standard of basic arithmetic of school children too would have improved. However, surprisingly, this is one area where instead of improvement deterioration appears to have taken place in recent decades. Several surveys carried out in different parts of the world indicate that while children are becoming better at electronic things like computers, their most basic arithmetic skills are deteriorating. Even fourth or fifth graders are lagging behind in basic skills such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of numbers. A review of the scenario by this author seems to indicate that a primary reason for this is the fact that curriculums have been expanded much too rapidly with the consequence that far too much knowledge is being thrust upon youngest of children leaving them disinterested in the subject. Attempts have been made to include algebra at elementary school level as well as concepts from s