Really it's time to Take Back Math

Last week I asked a student 3 times 5. I got the ah ah ah response and then they reached for their calculator.  This student was in 10th grade from a affluent family. No, just no, surely this isn't acceptable. is it? Is it totally acceptable and in fact expected to be to be bad at math? It appears in TV and movies and other popular culture that if someone is bad at math its okay however being bad at English denotes some kind of educational deficit or "stupidity". We really need to take back math.

Katherine Coleman, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Johnson, is a math goddess (not her official title) who "early application of digital electronic computers at NASA. Known for accuracy in computerized celestial navigation, she calculated the trajectory for Project Mercury and the 1969 Apollo 11 flight to the Moon." (Wikipedia 2016) Yes she calculated, by hand, how to get us to the moon. In fact NASA used her to calculated the accuracy.

Please lets Take back math, lets make it as important as all other subjects and refuse to settle for students grabbing calculators for 5 times 3. We can do better, really we can. Take back math www.takebackmath.com