Hello, again! I have recently discovered a man, named Scott Flansburg, who holds a Guinness World Record for being able to calculate faster than a calculator in adding the same number over and over again as many times as he can in 15 seconds. He beat the calculator by adding 38 thirty-six times in a row.
He has these very cool ways of teaching how to add, divide, and multiply numbers. He claims that around the world we teach math in a manner that requires so much memorization that math doesn't useful or user friendly. He claims that every day of your life you will have to use numbers at some point, no matter what you are doing. He also claims that his ways of teaching simple maths skills will make people feel more comfortable dealing with numbers, and make numbers easier to understand and deal with. He says that numbers are confusing because use them in the completely incorrect way. We add in the opposite direction as we read and we have to memorize everything. We make maths harder than they really are and he has found the easier routes to understanding numbers.
Here are a few videos that talk about what he does!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=nTpLpOZXnUI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vGULqoEP5TE

Sources
http://scottflansburg.com/
www.youtube.com
www.google.com