Calculators: Friend or Foe?

It was my sophomore year in high school and I was so excited. No more being called a freshmn! Finally I was considered an upper classman. The class I was looking most forward to was my math class. Third period room 422 Algebra 2-Honors. Ever since I can remember math has always been my strong point. Numbers just clicked for me, but I couldn’t say the same about the rest of my family. I was considered the odd ball because I never struggled on math as they did. Constantly helping them out when ever they were confused, I never truly understood how someone could struggle at math because it was so simple for me. When I entered my math class the first thing handed out was a calculator. “These will become your best friends; this world is advancing so swiftly that you don’t need a paper or pencil anymore because your calculators do all the work for you. It's amazing.”My teacher said. During class he’d always tell everyone to ask for a TI-89 calculator for Christmas rather than that video game you’ve been dying for because the calculator would be more useful. I wasn’t complaining.. Simple math became even simpler with a calculator. Problem: 8x=64 *go in my bag and grab my calculator, type in 64/8=8* Using the calculator so much never really hit me until I was home one night doing work. I went to ask my uncle for a calculator and here’s how our conversation went:
Him: “What are you working on?”
Me: “Matrices.”
Him: “You can do that by hand.”
Me: “My teacher never taught me by hand.”
Him: “What do you mean he never taught you by hand?!!?”
Me: “He teaches everything by calculator”
He was appalled by the idea of using calculators for everything. He went on to explain how when he was a kid he didn’t need a calculator. Then he asked me one question that had me perplexed for the rest of the night. “What are you supposed to do when you're not allowed to use this scientific calculator on test and they only let you use a simple one?” I never really thought of that. When the school year ended I went to Upward Bound. There I got myself to not use a calculator. I found that I needed to use my fingers for math. It was as though I'd forgotten how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. I had replaced my brain with a calculator.
I’m Sorry, Jocey