Fuzzy math keeps spreading

This writer is making a nice analogy between reading and math. Just because technology is available, should we stop teaching kids how to read? Fuzzy math promoters seem to believe something similar by encouraging the use of calculators at an early age and by displaying hostility to memorization. The result is another generation of math cripples. Memory is one of those great gifts. It is therefore incomprehensible why educationists would wage war against memory.

To put this into perspective, consider the following analogy: Your first-grader comes home from school and tells you about the new Everyday Reading curriculum. Since there's such a prevalence of "books on tape," and with the latest technology known as text-to-speech, allowing computers to speak any text, the schools have implemented this great new program. It removes the emphasis on memorizing the alphabet and the tedium of learning to read. No more wasting time on the trivial, tedious basic mechanics of reading. No more hours spent on phonics or spelling. The new curriculum spends much more time teaching the children to analyze complex literature from a young age, since they're now freed up from the tedium of actually READING it!