[Wool2662]

Non of that paper stuff! Stone tablets only.

[cyberax]

No. Paper and handwriting is great.

[doug_durham]

For a subset of the population who are manually adept. Excluding modalities from school isn't productive.

[cyberax]

You become manually adept by practicing.

And of course, people who physically can't write need to have specialized curriculae. Just like we have them for deaf or dyslexic kids.

[rkagerer]

Would abaci be too high tech?

[bawolff]

Abaci would actually probably be good for making mental math come naturally.

As a general rule, i am on team - if you need a calculator in math class then you aren't learning math.

[thfuran]

Because if you're studying real math, a calculator wouldn't help?

[cyberax]

Pretty much. You either do every calculation symbolically, or you need a full-blown computer for numeric methods.

[bawolff]

Either that, or you are trying to teach people arithmatic, in which case having them do it by hand is a benefit.

[SoftTalker]

We learned to use them in elementary school (1970s)!

It was what I think they now call a "manipulative" as way to teach place value, addition, and multiplication.

[cyberax]

An interesting question, actually. It feels like they can be a good teaching tool, compared to calculators.

[caseyy]

"You won't always have an abacus in your pocket."