After 40 Years, Calculators in School Still Add Up to Debate (2/2)

Yet after forty years, calculators in the classroom still add up to the same old debate.

Some education experts think calculators are used too much. Children, they say, learn to depend on these electronic brains instead of their own. Calculators may not only give students answers to questions they do not really understand, critics argue. They may also keep them from discovering ideas for themselves. The danger? Students who cannot even do simple addition and subtraction.

Other experts, though, say calculators have helped make mathematics more understandable to more students. They say calculators give students more time to understand and solve problems -- and to develop a better sense of what numbers mean. That way, the reasoning" class="hjdict" word="reasoning" target=_blank>reasoning goes, they can study higher level ideas than they would otherwise. And they can feel better about their abilities.

What do teachers think? Generally they say calculators can be useful -- especially with more complex math. But they also say that young students should know basic operations before they begin using them.

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40年后，计算器在课堂是否应该使用这个老话题又引起了争论。

一些教育专家认为计算器在课堂里被应用得过多了，孩子们是在学习如何依赖这些电子脑瓜而不是孩子们自己的脑袋。批评家们说，不应该只是计算器给学生提供问题的答案，而这些问题可能孩子们还都没真正理解明白。计算器还会成为学生们自发思考的障碍。这样会带了什么坏处？学生们可能连简单的加减运算都不会做。
然而，另外一些教育专家认为计算器能帮助更多的学生更好地理解数学问题。专家们觉得计算器能让学生能有更多的时间思考和解决问题--并且对数字的含义有更好的感性理解。从这个方面讲，就有理由说用计算器的学生就能比没有计算器帮助的学生学更高一级的数学知识。而且，他们会对自己的能力更有自信。

老师们是怎么想的呢？一般来说，老师们认为计算器还是有帮助作用的 -- 尤其是帮助解决难度较高的数学问题。但是，老师们也觉得低年级的学生应该在使用计算器之前先自己掌握基本的数学运算。