Actually flagamuffin, this is exactly the thing they teach in the book! By the way, just to be clear I think that doing mental math is absolutely one of the best skills one can acquire. I was just wondering if b_b gave them a sort of aptitude test of if it was a general rule. If a student walked in and he gave them what's 111 x 23 or if it was more on a general "Oh I found this by calculating 111 x 23 in my head". Not sure if I am explaining myself clearly here. I do not think there is anything wrong with pushing kids. People might conflate "pushing" with "punishing". This is not the case. In teaching I have noticed that often times there is a heavy mental barrier for most kids. By pushing them you get them past that barrier and into where they need to be. Honestly, I just love thinking about the different ways to teach this stuff. Maybe I'll go through some of them with a self post one day, it's a bit off topic for this post.