“Obvious is the most dangerous word in mathematics.” – Eric Temple Bell (1813-1960), Scottish mathematician
AFTER my May 3 column ‘Faith-based grading’ came out, the feedback has been pouring in.
Of all the issues I raised, it was the humble calculator that became the focal point of debate.
Some readers took issue with what they saw as an anti-tech stance.
That’s not what I wrote, and certainly not what I believe.
I’m not a math teacher by trade, but I’ve spent years helping others make sense of numbers, whether in lecture halls, boardrooms or on the trading floor.
I’ve seen how a simple shift in mindset can transform how students approach math.
In one particular case, I even demonstrated, live, that a trained human brain can outperform a calculator in mental math.
Not because it’s faster every time, but because it understands the logic behind the numbers.
Real power comes from knowing why the numbers behave the way they do.
This exacting logic forms the foundation of my career too, overseeing a team of twelve exceptional quantitative analysts focused on analysing data, forecasting volatility, evaluating risk, and transforming market turbulence into usable intelligence.
One of our better-known outputs is the Madison Cruz Bot (MCB), which longtime readers may remember from my business column, ‘Don’t cage the machine’.
Funny how, despite everything I’ve said to the contrary, my views are still mistaken as a rejection of technology.
What I was saying – plain and simple – is that we need to reclaim something we’ve been too quick to outsource: the power of our reasoning.
Humans who over-rely on it until they forget what they’re capable of on their own.
The rot isn’t hypothetical. It’s already here.
Recently, several university students took to social media to boast about using artificial intelligence (AI) to complete their econometrics assignments, mocking their lecturers.
If that’s what our education system is producing, then something has gone fundamentally wrong.
Technology should enhance human capability, not replace it, not weaken it.
Which is why early education should keep young minds away from calculators and AI.
Students need to struggle.
Getting it wrong is part of learning.
Hold back the urge to jump in, give them the space to figure it out themselves.
Only after that should they be given the tools to assist, not to substitute their intellect.
John Waldron said it best: “What we ignored in haste is harder to undo than to prevent.”
It’s heartbreaking to see primary school students who once had their times tables down cold today behave as if they’ve forgotten everything the moment they’re handed a calculator.
I can’t blame students for relying on calculators when teachers encourage it.
I also can’t blame teachers if the Standard Curriculum for Secondary Schools (KSSM) syllabus requires calculators, though many questions could be tackled without one.
The deeper fault lies with a broken system.
One that strips children of their number sense and, along with it, their love for math.
The calculator isn’t to blame.
It doesn’t kill mathematics or rewrite its laws.
It is built to support complexity, not to replace comprehension.
Somewhere along the way, we stopped aiming for understanding and settled for convenience.
What’s worse is that calculators aren’t foolproof.
Anyone in finance or engineering knows floating point errors, memory limitations, or simple misuse can skew results.
In the absence of foundational knowledge, students surely fail to recognise when something doesn’t add up.
So they take whatever the screen says as gospel.
That blind faith is careless. Dangerous, even.
A calculator is only as useful as the mind that wields it.
Just ask Pope Leo XIV – yes, the American pontiff who also happens to be a mathematician.
He’d likely say the same.
(Fun fact: back when he was still a cardinal, he published some surprisingly sharp math papers. Not exactly what you’d expect from someone in clerical robes, especially in a world that still acts like science and religion are at war. Hopefully, his papacy will show that the language of numbers and the mystery of faith are not enemies. Think of Isaac Newton, who thought of science as a way to understand God’s design or Blaise Pascal’s reason and mysticism to explore divine truth.)
No matter how advanced the tool is, it can’t think.
The analytical still belongs to us.
Numerical fluency is as essential to math and science as knowing how to hold a pen before writing a novel.
And yet, in this “efficiency-above-everything” culture, the calculator has become an escape hatch from effort itself.
Picking up from last week’s column, I want to acknowledge Madam L, a concerned primary school teacher, who pointed me to a Year 6 math question involving interest and dividends.
This so-called Standard Curriculum for Secondary Schools (KSSR)-aligned workbook claims to follow the curriculum guide (DSKP), but a closer look at the content and level of difficulty reveals otherwise.
Under KSSR, interest and dividends should be introduced in simple, conceptual terms.
Calculations involving loan repayment instalments fall under Form 3 content, not the primary level.
Some might wonder: what’s the link between repayment and a question that only asks “which loan is more beneficial?”
Well, forget the answer in the workbook suggesting monthly instalment comparisons – a method again clearly borrowed from Form 3.
So much for age-appropriate learning.
How is a child supposed to judge which loan is more cost-effective without first calculating the total repayment amount?
For example, if you borrow RM6,000 and pay RM500 a month for one year, is that a better deal than borrowing RM12,000 and paying RM400 for 30 months?
What about comparing a 7-year versus a 9-year car loan?
This is how we breed financial illiteracy early, by drilling in all the wrong lessons, horribly.
As discussed in ‘Borrowed to the bone’ (April 23), the obsession with “24-month loans because RM248/month is affordable” traps many into debt they can’t crawl out of.
Shamefully, these mistakes endure simply because no one is paying attention – no systems in place to review, no one held accountable, and no standards enforced.
Some editors insert questions to fill pages and meet deadlines, regardless of whether they make sense.
This is why I keep coming back to one proposal: the Definitive Overhaul of Government Expenditure, or DOGE.
Unless we reconstruct the system starting from the ministry downwards, this recurring cycle of errors stemming from unchecked assumptions, flawed calculations and misguided policies will persist.
It won’t be the children’s fault when they grow up carrying the consequences of our failures.
The views expressed here are those of the columnist and do not necessarily represent the views of Sarawak Tribune. The writer can be reached at med.akilis@gmail.com
