Computation: low achievers' stumbling block or stepping stone?
Kenneth J. Travers · The Arithmetic Teacher · 1969
Legend has it that inscribed over Plato's porch were the words, “Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here!” I suspect that as mathematics teachers most of us have shared a measure of this fervor, and in our imaginations have chiseled over the doors of our classrooms mere mortal inscriptions like, “Let no one ignorant of computation pass through these portals!” For it seems that large proportions of students are blocked from appreciable progress in mathematics because of their inability to compute.