Dear Humans,

The other day one of you solved 55 x 64 in your head. And the people around you were so impressed that someone exclaimed, “Your brain is a calculator!”

But that is not true. The human brain is nothing like a calculator. A calculator very quickly “crunches” numbers, but the calculator doesn’t “think” about numbers.

The whiz who quickly multiplied 55 by 64 had a strategy, based on the numbers, and the property of multiplication. And, even better, the 5th grade math whiz can talk to us about their strategy. Calculators don’t do much talking.

Machines can give us a lot of information, but they can’t make sense of it. Luckily, we carry around in our skulls the best sense-making machine ever invented.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck