> Higher math isn't harder arithmetic, it's increasingly more abstract and sometimes doesn't even involve numbers. A student with their times tables down isn't going to do any better in a calculus course than one who relies on a calculator.
IMHO, that's wrong in many cases. For instance: there's arithmetic in algebraic manipulations, and a lot of that is in the times-table memorization range. I definitely had to rely on my calculator in calculus class (and specifically swapped professors to one that would allow the use of one for that reason).
There's also the fact that neglecting memorization as a "waste of time" at the start of your math career sets up a bad precedent and bad habits that will continue throughout it, barring substantial corrective effort.
I, personally, only stopped having problems due to my deficit when I got to discrete math, which was the one math class I took that didn't involve numbers, like you said.
IMHO, that's wrong in many cases. For instance: there's arithmetic in algebraic manipulations, and a lot of that is in the times-table memorization range. I definitely had to rely on my calculator in calculus class (and specifically swapped professors to one that would allow the use of one for that reason).
There's also the fact that neglecting memorization as a "waste of time" at the start of your math career sets up a bad precedent and bad habits that will continue throughout it, barring substantial corrective effort.
I, personally, only stopped having problems due to my deficit when I got to discrete math, which was the one math class I took that didn't involve numbers, like you said.