myrmepropagandist

In grade school did you learn the multiplication table through 10 or through 12?

I once had a student from Senegal who said his school made them learn through 15... I was a little jealous.

(I only learned through 10, but have picked up most of 11 and 12 slowly over time...I resent that I'll never know those as easily as the single digits. I wish I'd been forced to learn all the way to 20 tbh.)

through 10
34.7%
through 12
57.1%
through more than 12
5.8%
other/see poll
2.5%
Poll ended at .
Aug 12, 2023 at 2:52pmWeb
Show threadmoved servers ➡ @[email protected]Aug 12, 2023
@futurebird I had a teacher in middle school who had an old record he'd play that recited multiplication tables up to 12 and state capitols. I don't remember the state capitols nearly as well but the tables stuck.
Show threadcuan_knaggsAug 12, 2023
@futurebird there was an attempt to get me to learn it to 12. didn't work though
Show threadSimon RolfmoreAug 12, 2023
@futurebird @sabik my first school taught them up to 12, then when you could answer any of those, just kept on adding numbers. I got to 17, although I can’t remember much of it now. 13 comes in handy from time to time!
Show threadRuth O’DayAug 12, 2023

@cloudthethings @futurebird @sabik
Similar here: officially we did to 12 but I made my own for 13.

When it’s fun, it’s not work. : )

Show threadllewellyAug 12, 2023
@futurebird the teachers at my elementary school couldn't agree on whether the multiplication and division memorization should end at 10 or at 12. Chaos and conflicting expectations.
Show threadColorblind CowboyAug 12, 2023

@futurebird Yup! 12x12 = 144. It’s as if it’s all you needed to know, the upper limit of mathematics! Needless to say I was dissapointed to learn that was just the beginning.

A lot of my addition and multiplication memory is encoded with my synesthesia. Certain ones stick better because of their shape/texture associations.

Show threadVajojar paratiisissaAug 12, 2023
@futurebird I remember when I was in the second grade, I was aked to memorize the multiplication table through 10. In high school, my math teacher required us to memorize the square of each number from ten to twenty, which was convenient for solving problems.
Show threadBob DavidsonAug 12, 2023
@futurebird
now I just add repeatedly🥹
Show threadMichael BaconAug 12, 2023

@futurebird

I was taught 12 but really didn't do memorization for a lot of it. I used tricks and shortcuts for about 3/4 of the table, and memorized the ones I had nothing for.

Show threadAlonAug 12, 2023
@futurebird Israel teaches through 10; the expat ghetto of Singapore, where my sibling went, teaches through 12.
Show threadEric R. ScottAug 12, 2023
@futurebird through 12, but about half of them I never managed to memorize to this day because of #dyscalculia. 7s? 8s? Yeah, that's going to involve finger counting for me for the rest of my life.
Show threadDeterioratedStuccoAug 12, 2023

@futurebird
I remember struggling with the 11-times table. 12 was reasonably easy (pre-decimalisation Brit, so we handled multiples of 12 regularly - 12 (old) pence to the shilling.)

I think we might have been asked about the 13-times table, but not as part of curriculum. I would think that in the late 60s learning the currency would have been mandatory primary-school curriculum, but I don't actually know that.

Show threadkechpajaAug 12, 2023

@futurebird I never really memorized them. I just got good enough at doing those multiplications fast enough to pass the math tests.

(I’ve functionally memorized most of the table since then just due to experience, but have never sat down and explicitly memorized them all.)

Show threadChris [list of emoji]Aug 12, 2023

@futurebird

12 here.

(Although this *may* have been the extra education my parents imposed on me. Modern computing has mostly validated the resentment I felt at the time.)

Show threadRobotistryAug 12, 2023
@futurebird School required us to learn through 12, and I learned a few special cases (the first few 13, some of 15 - never learned any of 14 though).
Show threadPatriceAug 12, 2023
@futurebird oh we totally had to learn it all the way to 20 at some point in elementary school
Show threadMaude NificentAug 12, 2023

@futurebird

up to 12 (australia)…

in the years BCE (before calculators were everywhere)

Show threadCarolannieAug 12, 2023
@futurebird I was in grade school in France, where we also learned to draw maps of Europe by hand (of course, France was the center). Times tables up to 20
Show threadBarry GoldmanAug 12, 2023

@futurebird not as useful as tools tho. what galls me is that schools scare kids with this huge chart of 144 things they gotta either memorize or look up.

there's lots of patterns in multiplication and so there are only about 30 really hard ones you gotta memorize.

y even put 1s and 10s on there? pattern to 5s, 2s 4s and 8s is just lots of doubling. 9s thers a pattern...

11s and 12s just there to scare kids.

school sucks.

Show threadBarry GoldmanAug 12, 2023
@futurebird i memorized very little in math and spent alot of time figring stuff out over and over again. like working out in th gym. plus by working things out, you discover more patterns. math is all about patterns
Show threadWeaselAug 12, 2023

@barrygoldman1 @futurebird
Sounds familiar.

I remember re-deriving formulas during exams, which risks running out of time, but turned out to be fast enough.

One of my favorite patterns for mental math is the formula for (x+1)*(x-1), (x+2)*(x-2), etc, so it's quick and easy to calculate things like 38*42 or 59*61 in my head.

Show threadllewellyAug 12, 2023
@barrygoldman1 @futurebird
1s and 10s are useful for showing the simplest patterns, but unfortunately not all teachers teach them that way. These days, with calculators ever present, how to look for patterns and figure out why they exist is the only really important reason to teach multiplication and division tables anyway.
Show threadBarry GoldmanAug 12, 2023

@llewelly @futurebird 1 10 simple patterns not belong on a reference table. calculators are good for AFTER u master the patterns and remember stuff, when u have to do a LOT of repetitive work.

but then with calculators so powerful (or, say, python on ur computer, which i use as my calculator) they should be teaching programming ALONG with arithmetic.

i remember in college i'd help th kids on the hall with math and i'd chuck their calculators out the window. (first floor)

Show threadNoctisEqui 🇺🇦🇵🇸🇪🇹🏳️‍🌈Aug 12, 2023

@barrygoldman1 @futurebird

It was the ‘4’s’ that really got me. Now I just double them and add, what ever it takes to get the multiplier right. I am almost 76, math trauma is long-lasting!

Show threadapophisAug 12, 2023
@barrygoldman1 @futurebird YES THIS all of this

(and of course in addition to my other reply: we never drilled 1 through 3 either, because by the time we had gone from 9 through 4 everything in the 2 and 3 sequences was already repeated far more times than the higher numbers anyway, and 1 was completely pointless, and 5 was just half and move decimal point, so 1,2,3,5 were only included as mnemonics and i only ever rote-memorized 9, 8, 7, 6, 4 for 5*9=45 equations* for the entire inventory of multiplication math facts that i didn't just pick up from frequent actual use)

*(obviously less than this if you count 9x4 and 4x9 as the same, but my math-math isn't good enough for me to figure out exactly how many uniques there are without brute-forcing it)
Show threadHeatherAug 12, 2023
@futurebird they tried to teach us up to 12 but my brain has steadfastly refused much above 5 except for the 9,10&11 times table due to quirks (9 adds up to 9, 10 is just number with a 0, 11 is the number twice)
Show threadMatt McIrvinAug 12, 2023

@futurebird I switched schools between the 2nd and 3rd grade. In 2nd grade we only got up to about 5 or 6. In 3rd grade they assumed we'd memorized the whole thing up to 10.

So, the rest of it including the tricky high multiples of 7 fell into that gap and I figured, "I understand the principle of multiplication, no way am I going to do all that extra memorization in my spare time." And I was terrible at arithmetic for years. Of course, with a little more brain work I could have figured out there were only a few cases I was really missing, but I had this emotional block.

Show threadRivikahAug 12, 2023
@futurebird the standard curriculum was only through 10. I think 11 and 12 were probably an enrichment activity.
Show threadJanis La CouvéeAug 12, 2023
@futurebird what an interesting question - I had never thought about learning more than through 12. It doesn't come naturally but in a pinch I could do through 15 but then I am calculating in me head.
Show threadapophisAug 12, 2023
@futurebird i don't think we ever drilled on the multiplication tables at school

my mother only drilled me on the sequence through 9, starting with 9 (so as we went on there would be more repeats of previously seen equations)

since 10 is just "add zero" it was considered a waste of time

this was all done in chinese so no weird historical anglo base-12 zombie traditions to justify going up to that number
Show threadapophisAug 12, 2023
@futurebird (also it was never a "table" exactly, just a list of equations to memorize by rote and the patterns were implicit in the drilling... if i'd been taught to try to look up a table and reason it out i would probably not be able to do the most basic arithmetic now)
Show threadKoutsie Aug 12, 2023
@futurebird finland but... our sibling class (we had 2 classes with the same grade students) went up to 20!
we only did up to 10 :D
Show threadPicks the EvangelistAug 12, 2023
@futurebird school taught to ten but the inside of Trapper-brand folders had tables up to twelve
Show threadJ. Steven YorkAug 12, 2023
@futurebird
Learning these was very traumatic for me. Despite being a very smart kid otherwise, I struggled and hated it. Only recently did I figure out that I was dyslexic, thus my problems. But everyone just assumed I was lazy, and I was angry and ashamed.
Show threadacmAug 12, 2023
@futurebird In theory through 12, but I think I did through 11, which was easy, and am still a little bitter that I have to pause before every calculation of room and material dimensions...
Show threadiSchackAug 12, 2023
@futurebird I learned it through 20 here in northern Germany.
Show threadacbAug 12, 2023
@futurebird @futzle Through to 12, in Australia
Show threadCara BruarAug 12, 2023
@futurebird When I learned the times tables we needed 12 because we had the old currency, 12 pennies in a shilling. Now we have decimal currency I can't see why anyone would need it. (Australia changed over in 1966).
Show threadKit BashirAug 12, 2023
@futurebird @futzle I transferred from a 10-school to a 12- school for the final year of primary school. That (and the fact they’d all been leaning to play recorder for 6 years and I hadn’t) led to some scrambling to catch up. My inexplicable knowledge of some locally-un-taught niceties of grammar blew their tiny wrong-side-of-the-mountains minds however.
Show threadTai xzoAug 13, 2023
@futurebird through 10, though according to some younger friends my school now teaches up to 16
Show threadMarioAug 13, 2023
@futurebird Mexico in the 80s only taught through 10. I had a vinyl record from Spain which went all the way through 12 and it was so odd for me.
Show threadDavid Mitchell Aug 13, 2023

@futurebird

I learned (was taught/figured out?) that you only need half the ‘table’ anyway (or less), it takes me a beat longer, but is more reliable. 11 are simple up to 10, and 12s came later doing diy and landscape construction (bc feet and inches)

Show threadDodo & the BrawnAug 13, 2023
@futurebird we learned through 20. It really, really helps
Show threadOfficially Tara 🕷️  🌹Aug 13, 2023

@futurebird i never did a good job learning any of the multiplication tables, but 11 was actually the easiest because all the single digits are just doubled... even i could remember "11 22 33 44 ..."

and i think to this day i have to think hard/compute most 12s. but i was supposed to wrote memorize them!

Show threadCyborg 2-A ✅Aug 13, 2023
I think we did 12's but i cheated in third grade and i can't even spell multiplation very good.

However, i'm in with those who believe that math is taught upside down and rote memorization is a crazy waste of time and money. Everyone has a mainframe in their hands, even 5 year olds.

For example, when you get to 900 level PhD courses you finally get to prove that 1+1=2

That is really a thing.

So everything taught from k to 12 is based on Calculus, they should teach calculus at the beginning and work the other way.

The issue is that school is rote memorization and consumer behavior training and not much else. This is why homeschooled kids a generally smarter.
Show threadluna is talking sh*t 🐙Aug 13, 2023
@futurebird but... why? why to learn all the way to 20?