Calculators get a bad rap. Often, teachers are afraid to give students access to calculators, because they want students to learn their multiplication facts, and I get it. That is a great goal, but that is not the ultimate goal. I often ask myself, “What is the standard I am trying to achieve here” to ensure that I haven’t lost sight of the purpose of my lesson, activity, or assessment.
Teaching math with calculators
When I introduced simplifying radicals, I told my kids they would memorize perfect squares and cubes accidentally. I’m not giving any timed quizzes, and I’ll leave my perfect squares and cubes on the wall for the entirety of the unit–quiz and test days included.
But with repeated exposure and practice, they will find that they’ve committed them to memory. I explained that it’s like your favorite song. You probably didn’t set out to memorize the lyrics, but you’ve listened to it so much that you picked them up along the way. The same will happen with these perfect powers.
Addressing math trauma in the classroom
You see, many of my kids believe that they’re always going to struggle in math. That no matter how hard they try, no matter what they do, they will never be good enough. It’s heartbreaking.
They didn’t always see it this way. Somewhere along the way, maybe it was a big traumatic event or a series of smaller ones, they learned this false story. I know from talking with my students over the years that timed tests involving multiplication facts played a big role for many of them.
When students aren’t allowed access to calculators, it shames them for their gaps in understanding, for which they aren’t necessarily to blame. If I told my students they had to simplify radicals without the aid of a calculator to help them consider factors of the radicand, some would be able to do some scratch work in the margins of their pages and after some time finally, piece it together, but many would be unable to even begin the task.
Letting the fact that my students don’t have all their multiplication facts memorized prevent them from being successful at simplifying radicals is gatekeeping. It’s a prime example of how I would be using my curriculum and instructional methods to systematically bar some students from ever mastering the content.
Empowering students with calculators in math
My students with math anxiety would simply stare. They wouldn’t know how to begin or how to quiet the voices within that tell them they’re not enough. If I say, “Well, I guess you need to memorize your multiplication facts,” that’s not helpful. That takes time. And it prevents my students from engaging with the content that day. At the end of the day, if I don’t allow them to use the calculator, most likely they will have not mastered either the standard (simplifying radicals) or the times tables, and we will all be frustrated and disappointed.
Breaking the stigma around calculators in education
So, my kids get a calculator. And they interact with, wrestle with, and master grade-level math. And along the way, they pick up some of those missing math fact pieces by accident. And with each passing day, they move a little bit closer to a growth mindset. They’re a little closer to believing me when I say, “You can do this, you belong.” And that’s absolutely worth it.