[blparent] Just Curious

[Jo Elizabeth Pinto]

Hi.  I'm proofreading a third grade math book right now, and it's got me curious about something.  When I was in school, I learned math on the abacus.  It wasn't really all that different from the way other kids were learning, except I used the abacus instead of pencil and paper.  But in the math books I see now, they're using a lot of different ways to teach.  So, for those of you who are younger than I am--I graduated from high school in 1989--is the abacus still taught to blind children?  Are other ways of doing math taught as well?  When are talking calculators introduced?  (Talking calculators came out when I was in the fifth or sixth grade, I think, and they were about twice the size of the ones now, with half the speech quality.)  Anyway, I was just wondering.

Jo Elizabeth

Until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunters.--African Proverb