[PW] Re: Women's, Mother's and Traditional Arithmetic

[Sylvia Milne]

I can remember doing my nine times table using my fingers.
I wonder if I was doing "women's arithmetic".
Anyway, this website 
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/barry.r.clarke/zfingers.htm
or  http://tinyurl.com/nynaw  shows how to do it.

I quote " Although applicable for tables 1 to 9, it turns out that it is 
easiest to use on the 7, 8 and 9 times tables, the ones that students 
traditionally have the greatest trouble with"
The website has diagrams which make it easier to understand.

Sylvia Milne

Please visit me at
http://www.sylviamilne.btinternet.co.uk/plucked/
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "JT Thompson" <jtthompson at eircom.net>
To: <list at project-wombat.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 12, 2006 8:12 AM
Subject: [PW] Re: Women's, Mother's and Traditional Arithmetic


> The book with the references to women's arithmetic is The Nothing
> That Is: A Natural History of Zero, by Robert and Ellen Kaplan.
>
> Quote: "You will see women bending and braiding their fingers in the
> market, using what some of them call "women's arithmetic", others
> "the arithmetic of Marseilles".
>
> The authors talk a bit more about the women's arithmetic, making it
> sound mouthwateringly easy (and a wonderful game to learn), but they
> don't make it clear how exactly it's done.
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