Re: Quisanaut? Cuisinaut? huh?

Peter Moylan wrote:

> At my sister's school it was all the children - of about 5 or 6 years
> old, as I recall it - and with a teacher who possibly didn't see the
> point.  I can see that useful things could have been done with the
> rods _after_ learning basic arithmetic, but having to learn things
> like 'green + green = red', with the hope that the children will later
> deduce from this that 1+1=2, was an exercise in futility.

"nickel + nickel = dime" [translate to your local money as necessary] is
fairly concrete, isn't it? and, directly useful on its own even if one
doesn't take away from it that 5+5=10