When I am on duty at the Railway Museum, showing visitors around our exhibits, it often saddens me to see that modern kids have lost some of the skills which were second nature to the older generations. The one that I notice most is adding up in your head ….. modern kids just can’t do it and need to reach for their phone. There are two examples at the museum.
First is the weighing machine in the station building. I invite kids to stand on the weighing machine and then add weights and move the slider until a perfect balance is achieved. I then ask the child to add up the weights to get the total. Something like 112 lbs plus 56 lbs plus 14 lbs plus 3 lbs to get a total of 185 pounds. I reckon that only about 10% of kids are able to do this without the help of their parents.
The second example is in our cafeteria car where we display a 1960 cafeteria menu. I explain that the prices with a “D” or to the right of a “/” are pence, and the numbers to the left of a “/” are shillings, and that there are twelve pence in a shilling.
I when invite them to add up all the prices on the menu in their head. In ten years, I’ve never met any person under the age of thirty who could do it. In fact, most of them think I’m crazy and have just made it all up. Why would anyone want to live in a world without decimals?
Why don’t you give it a try? The answer is upside down at the bottom of this page.
