to think that BODMAS/BIDMAS is a pile of pish devised to keeps children busy?

[duchesse]

And designed to palliate poor notation.

I see about 6 threads a week from parents baffled by their children's homework. It puts me in a rage. If I'd written such poorly punctuated sums out as the ones these beleaguered parents are having to deal with when I was back at school I'd have been in detention every week. Yet these are inexplicably set as homework.

Can anybody tell me if learning these stupid rules (rather than learning proper notation including brackets from the get-go) can actually help children at all in any way? Or is it, as DH suspects, merely a nifty way of generating activities that can easily be marked? DH has an Oxbridge degree in maths and Phd in phsyics btw and also cannot see why the feck this is being taught.

I'm 42 and learned BODMAS at school, it's hardly a new invention. Even without brackets in a calculation, you can not assume the sum is read left to right, so how do you assign priority to different parts of the calculation?

As for the DH has an Oxbridge degree in maths and Phd in phsyics btw and also cannot see why the feck this is being taught., I have a PhD in chemistry with a heavy emphasis on maths and can see exactly why it is taught - "stealth" boast? much?

Could you give an example?

Don't see your point. BODMAS is helpful and eg saves you having to add so many brackets to eg complex Excel formulas.

That's not to say that I don't find much of what my DC learnt in KS1 maths confusing - whereas the KS2 stuff is generally how I would approach it too.

I think it lays the groundwork for algebra and quadratic equations later (much later!) Eg when you see 4x2 + 7x -5 you have to know which bits to solve first if x=5, but that equation does not have brackets

Oh god YA so NBU.

Would your DH write E=m(c^2) then?

It's a useful lesson in how mathematics (and in fact logic) differ from the cultural convention of reading right to left. Think of it as a lesson in thinking differently.

Left to right to obviously.

My wine has certainly got me thinking differently!

I have no idea what the letters mean.

Having had it explained to me (it didn't exist in schools when I did maths) I agree it seems nothing more than a way of avoiding having to use brackets. YANBU.

Fuckit :
Brackets
Orders or Indices
Divide
Multiply
Add
Subtract

There's one doing the rounds on FB just now - what's the answer to this?

7 + 7 ÷ 7 + 7 x 7 - 7

If you use BODMAS you get one answer, if you go L -> R you get another.

Yes 50 but why would you not get 50 it's basic maths rules.

As others have said, it's important for later maths. It's helpful to think of maths as a language in situations like this - BOMDAS is the equivalent of spelling and grammar in English. Just as "let's eat, grandma" and "let's eat grandma" have different meanings, so do "7 + 7 x 7" and "(7 + 7) x 7".

DH has an Oxbridge degree in maths but doesn't recognise field notation? Ok.

YABVU

Order of operations is important for later on - and indeed for anyone who is likely to use a spreadsheet at any time in their lives.

Parentheses and brackets have a formal role in maths, they are not just there to make operations easier to read for someone who is mathematically illiterate.

Ye Gods. So now we ought not to teach essential elements of mathematics because some parents don't understand it? Excellent plan! Sod numeracy, who needs that shit anyway.

Good post ozne!

The 'language' of maths has been painstakingly and precisely discovered/devised and used for centuries

I did it at school. (43)
Being very average at anything more complicated than subtraction /addition, l was surprised to find l enjoyed it. I could also complete it very quickly.
Anything that helps you use your mind, had to be a good thing right?

Boring teacher here.

The skills used in BIDMAS are required in up to 50 other areas of maths (that are gcse examined). Substitution is the main example. Putting x=2 and y=3 into xy2 would be different without BIDMAS telling you to do y2 first.

Your DH is full of tosh and probably uses BIDMAS daily without recognising it. If not, the computer programmes he uses will. More fool him for not realising.

Who writes that they have an "Oxbridge" degree anyway? It's one or the other surely

at ozne

My DS firmly believes that capital letters at the beginning of sentences/names of countries is stupid. I say let's dispense with that as well and get rid of some more silly rubbish that they teach in schools!

So how would you do

13 x 7 / 5 + 6 / 3 x 18

Which is priority?

My 80yo engineer father learned BODMAS, under a different acronym because he grew up on a different country with a different language.

And not all languages read left to right. But maths is the same whether you are using it in England, Iraq or Japan. BODMAS is part of the grammar of the only truly universal language, however you describe it.

Would you simply explain the grammar and spelling of any new language to a learner from the get-go, and expect them to use every rule correctly straight off? No! You build up slowly, mastering chunks as you go along, and combining them with greater mastery over time.

I think that the problem here is that 'Someone' who has mastered a subject has completely forgotten what it was like learning that subject in the first place.

Nerf you can do the multiplication and division in any order. Then the addition. Multiply and divide are on the same 'level'. BIDMAS should really be laid out as
B
I
DM
AS

don't need BODMAS at the LIDL till.

Do Kids really need to write these days? Everything is typed