I'm poor at maths but good at arithmetic.
I put it down to an excellent primary school run by traditionalists who believed in a solid foundation in the basics - arithmetic, spag, basic general knowledge.
"We also used to sit and recite the times tables. Which has never left me." I'm almost 46 and did the same, it was going "out of style" at the time but the head of my primary was insistent - she was right!
By the time I went to high school too broad a curriculum was being taught without depth to the knowledge or even being sure pupils had a good foundation level of knowledge first.
Imo this became worse as time went on and spread into primary schools.
BUT I don't blame teachers, I went to school in the 70's and 80's when teachers still had some input into what was taught, how and when.
Jump to now when those setting the curriculum/syllabus have NO idea how teaching or education works but expect teachers to get kids to pass a zillion exams in far too many subjects before they've had a chance to grasp the basics!
That said my GCSE teacher was an impatient, abrupt arse! Told me he knew I'd fail and so no he wasn't bothering helping me when I struggled with eg trig.
The college lecturer I had for retaking was amazing! Understood that his students were mostly retaking due to struggling with maths for whatever reason and was patient, clear and thorough. Went properly back to basics for the first half term which I'm sure really helped.
When I later went to uni aged 30 many of the 18/19 year olds on my course (English) despite having A/A* results at A-Level had VERY poor SPaG skills - and the university was SO used to dealing with this that a week was set aside at the beginning of the course to teach basics that really should have been learnt at primary level!
My parents (late 60's in age) would have no difficulty with percentages, long division, SPaG or general knowledge - both left school at 14!
"OP, almost everyone uses Excel worksheets to work out things like that" and therein lies the problem. The assumption a machine will get it right. A calculator or a spreadsheet has to have been programmed correctly in the first place to provide the correct answer. If you don't know at least roughly what the answer should be how will you know if the calculator has been tapped with an extra number or the formula entered on the spreadsheet was wrong?
"I used to work in retail, the number of people who asked me how much 10% off £10 would be was shocking."
"The instructor told the class to add 17.5% to each item, then add them all up. Mother asked if perhaps they could add them first, then add 17.5% to the total. "Oh no," said the instructor in horror. "You'd get a completely different answer." " oh dear god! 🙄
Firesuit I understand what you mean but correct rounding should generally eliminate that.
I've a better/worse one - buying 4 items costing 50p each - sales assistant took a ridiculous amount of time adding this up using paper pencil :
50p + 50p = £1 + 50p = £1.50 + 50p = £2
I kid you not! And narrated her calculations THEN input this into the till - SO painful
Fleshmarket - I suspect a big problem is SPaG errors not being corrected even in English subject work and worse not losing marks for this in exams.
I was working in an accounts dept when the 17.5% vat came in - the panic at having to deal with a half percent calculation was ridiculous.
"There should be more emphasis on maths in practice in the real world and understanding basics of finance and economics." Martin Lewis is basically campaigning for this
"Unless you actually want a job in science or engineering, in which case GCSE maths (and increasingly, A Level maths) simply isn't good enough. I know, who'd want a job in science or engineering?" Then maybe pupils should be able to choose between maths and arithmetic at 16? (not a choice I had but I believe it was available until the half generation before mine)
"We need to equip vastly more people with advanced maths at school, not fewer." Sorry but until the gap in knowledge at basic level is addressed that's not going to be achieved.
On a serious note I honestly believe the lack of good basic arithmetic education is a big reason so many get into unmanageable debt - they don't understand percentages let alone apr calculations! Which of course has wider implications for the economy.