Well, since I just finished clearing a bunch of that white stuff and my hands are not cooperating, let me see if I can do this with brevity. In the context of counting change.....
First, it is correct and I agree, one must "want to learn." With little or no "need to learn" and/or consequences for not learning, what's left to encourage one to "want to learn?" If one can get through school, into adulthood, and into the workforce without being able to count change, why would they ever be inclined to take their time to learn? And now that most customers don't even care if they are counted out their change, obviously most businesses don't see a need to have clerks that can actually count change.
As far a "proper motivation", I can't imagine a better motivational factor then being able to count change or find another job. Or how about count change or you don't go on to 7th grade. But even if it was learned in school, if businesses are evidently willing to forego counting change in the interest of speed and the vast majority of customers don't care, nobody really cares.
But is actually counting out your change the "old way" worth the discussion? The actual act of counting it out probably is not. But what is, or should be important to all businesses and customers is the ability to count change. And that can only be displayed by actually doing it. Punching numbers into a machine is not an infallible process, mistakes can be made. It's pretty hard to catch any mistakes if just taking that handful of money and sticking it in your pocket. For the most part, when I hand the clerk cash for a purchase, I already know exactly what I should get back for change. The fun part is when they give you too much change, you try to tell them, and they argue that they are right. And that has happened on more then one occasion and I happily walk away letting them think I am the idiot.
Oops!
So much for brevity! But I can count change!
