I despair of the education system.

Cornucopia

Breaking it down, the question is probably: are there certain basic skills that would be useful for a person working in a shop to possess that were not demonstrated in the OP's account...? and why weren't they demonstrated?

FWIW, I suspect a lot of people who work on shop tills are on auto-pilot. Aldi seems to be the only immediate exception in the mass market/non-independent area, mainly because they are working at about 2-3 times the speed of other shops.

missbiggles1

Cornucopia wrote: »

Breaking it down, the question is probably: are there certain basic skills that would be useful for a person working in a shop to possess that were not demonstrated in the OP's account...? and why weren't they demonstrated?

FWIW, I suspect a lot of people who work on shop tills are on auto-pilot. Aldi seems to be the only immediate exception in the mass market/non-independent area, mainly because they are working at about 2-3 times the speed of other shops.

You're probably right.

I also wonder how many people, currently working on tills, would've managed in the days before bar codes and when you used to need to calculate the amount of change rather than have the till do it for you!

ElefantEd

Nick_C wrote: »

No. The OP illustrates that many young people lack the most basic maths skills.

And putting up with these declining standards and stating that these people have different abilities simply excuses our failing education system.

It seems that Nick_C is lacking some basic statistical skills.

The OP only demonstrates that at least one young person lacks the most basic maths skills (and even then the example only shows this lack in one situation). Extrapolating this to 'many young people' cannot be justified logically.

I wouldn't ascribe this error to a failing education system!

Nick_C

ElefantEd wrote: »

It seems that Nick_C is lacking some basic statistical skills.

The OP only demonstrates that at least one young person lacks the most basic maths skills (and even then the example only shows this lack in one situation). Extrapolating this to 'many young people' cannot be justified logically.

I wouldn't ascribe this error to a failing education system!

OK let me rephrase that.

The OP adds to the wealth of evidence, of which many of us will have first hand experience, that many young people lack the most basic maths skills.

ElefantEd

Nick_C wrote: »

OK let me rephrase that.

The OP adds to the wealth of evidence, of which many of us will have first hand experience, that many young people lack the most basic maths skills.

You will, of course, have allowed for confirmation bias, non-random-sampling and observer unreliability in this statement.

Also it begs the question of whether maths skills in young people are better or worse than in the population as a whole.

parkrunner

missbiggles1 wrote: »

I used to teach students on an A level equivalent course, all of whom had at least a C for GCSE Maths. It was always depressing when about half the group used a calculator to work out a 50% discount.

A C grade Maths GCSE is depressingly easy to get.

wrightk

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

I was in a certain bargain store earlier, and was being served by a young woman. I'd estimate late teens.

One of the items was a tray of 12 cans. She started counting them, so I said "There's 12. Four by Three".

Her reply was "I'm not very good at maths".

When she'd rung up all the items, she told me it was £19-01.

I gave her a £20 note, and a penny.

She tried to give me 1p in change.

I find this almost as annoying as certain types of people who feel they are far superior academically and need to go around moaning,complaining and correcting everyone as they go

Personally i'm no good at maths, i never have been. I couldn't even get a grade in it and i tried 4 times. Everything else (which didn't involve maths) i excelled at.

I suppose when a lot of people sit there reading the Daily Mail its very easy to succumb to certain stereotypes (late teens, school drop out, uneducated,working in a bargain store,our education system has failed). I prefer to believe that we all have particular strengths and weaknesses. I wonder what else that girl on the checkout might be good at. Maybe shes hugely talented with art,music or something creative

Just saying...

shaun_from_Africa

wrightk wrote: »

Personally i'm no good at maths, i never have been. I couldn't even get a grade in it and i tried 4 times. Everything else (which didn't involve maths) i excelled at.

But does your employment require that you interact with the public doing a job for which having basic mathematics skills is really a prerequisite for that job?

Pennywise

missbiggles1 wrote: »

I also wonder how many people, currently working on tills, would've managed in the days before bar codes and when you used to need to calculate the amount of change rather than have the till do it for you!

Or even before shops had tills at all. We had a family corner newsagents and didn't have tills, so we always added things up in our heads and then worked out the change by counting up. Funny thing was that when we finally moved into the 20th Century and bought a till, it slowed things down considerably.

I also remember the old KwikSave supermarkets, where the till workers did have tills, but nothing had price stickers on them, so they had to remember the prices, albeit from a relatively smaller range of products than a supermarket today.

In the power cuts last month, the only shop in our village that managed to stay open was the bakers - no surprise that it's run by a couple of older ladies who managed perfectly well to do the tallying up in their heads and work out change themselves. The newsagent (a twenty something lad) didn't even try to open!

bylromarha

wrightk wrote: »

I find this almost as annoying as certain types of people who feel they are far superior academically and need to go around moaning,complaining and correcting everyone as they go

Personally i'm no good at maths, i never have been. I couldn't even get a grade in it and i tried 4 times. Everything else (which didn't involve maths) i excelled at.

I suppose when a lot of people sit there reading the Daily Mail its very easy to succumb to certain stereotypes (late teens, school drop out, uneducated,working in a bargain store,our education system has failed). I prefer to believe that we all have particular strengths and weaknesses. I wonder what else that girl on the checkout might be good at. Maybe shes hugely talented with art,music or something creative

Just saying...

Personally what annoys me is the way that the phrase "I'm no good at maths" is socially acceptable.

You hear it far more than "I'm no good at English". With some parents during parents evening at school, it's like a badge of honour to not be good at maths. It's as if it's ok for their child to not be good at maths as they weren't. For some, this leads to not even bothering to support at home.