Pros/Cons of UCMAS/Abacus courses

Re: Pros/Cons of UCMAS/Abacus courses - Fdbk reqd

hi,
i am also interested to teach abacus to my 4 yr old.

did you get any feed back onthat.

thanks,
welcome

 

hi jlatch,

for any child before going to speed and short cuts they have to know the basic understanding of the concepts.it is important to emphasize on the concepts in their learning years. short cuts r for the experienced not for the learners.

thanks
lavanya

 

does anyone know any online courses in abacus for kids age 5and up

 

There is a misunderstanding against the abacus mental classes. First of all, abacus mental arithmetics isn't only about calculation at lightning speed, to me fast calculatin is just secondary, right brain development is the main reason why I teach my son abacus. In order to learn this new skill and understand the confusion among parents, I purposely went all the way to Malaysia to attend the abacus classes, but the school I attended is not UCMAS though.

Before we talk "deep" into this topic, let's look at some undeniable facts:
1) Abacus mental classes are currently part of the national curriculum in Japan and Thailand.
2) Abacus has been used by Chinese and Japanese for thousand of years
3) Many countries including China has a special military unit of highly trained people who do abacus calculation everyday, these people will be at service when their certain national military satellite system is crippled by enemy, they will have to guide their missles by calculating the location. I didn't make this news up, this has been reported in documentaries.

Based on the abovementioned facts, we should be crystal clear that abacus will not confuse children at school, otherwise Thailand and Japan won't have included it in their curriculum.

Ok, let's look at other facts
1) Taiwan is usually the number 1 country in Abacus training, their students often get most awards in many international competitions. I guess the market is more mature over there and they probably send out most no of students to all competitions.
2) UCMAS students are not the top performers. Whether we like it or not, this is the fact, they often have their own competitions and they restrict others to join to protect their interest. UCMAS promotes 2 hands method, but as far as I know, these 2 hands method is not being practised by most schools/countries, if their students are not so outstanding in public international competitions i guess this method doesn't really help.
3) Many nations including Malaysia (not sure about India) at one point included the abacus training for school kids, this is the way the ministry of education trained the teacher:

Select a group of head teachers to learn the methods, then each head teacher will teach regional teachers, later these regional teachers will train the local school teacher, so and so forth.

But unfortunately like all other projects in Malaysia, corruption comes first student always comes second, with very limited real spending money and shallow minded government planning, local teachers failed to learn the method properly, the teachers found it extremely confusing and difficult to teach their students, as a result this project was abandoned. So the confusion rumours are mostly from teachers at school, probably not from the properly trained students.

My abacus teacher told me these are the common problems their students encounter at school
- school method is too slow and long winded (which is true), so students tend to find school classes boring.
- students can't be bothered to write details required by the school method, so they may write the answer without showing the "traditional" steps.

Anyway, I believe abacus will not confuse students, but rather it offers students another way to get the result at a much quicker speed. To me fast calculation is just a byproduct, the real benefit is it can stimulate children right brain growth through abacus mental calculation.

For those who want to send their kids to learn abacus, here are the questions you should ask the school
- how long in average does it take to learn all basic +, -, x and /? Some schools spend 2 years teaching only + and -, the main reason is age 5&6 group competition is about +/-, so in order to win schools will not teach others, another reason is they want to earn more from parents by slowing the process. The school i attended teaches them all within a year, then move on to the more complicated x and /.
- if possible, observe their lessons, ask how soon will they teach the kids to do mental calculation without using physical abacus?

Like all things in this world, Abacus may not be suitable for all kids, i have seen a very bright kid whom from young learnt the Shichida method (flash card), she can read books from young age but she can't do Abacus well. So for those who want alternative I would recommend E.nopi, it is similar to Kumon but better and more fun to learn, most importantly E.nopi has critical thinking mathematics and Kumon doesn't. You can google the benefit of learning critical thinking maths.

 

hey
starrysky321 thanks for such a detailed and informative post.

But still i am confused about this. Whether it will clash with school style of mathematics....

Savita

 

Has it helped any of your kids?

 

It does not have to. If a child is taught explicitly about how numbers are represented and manipulated, I think they can learn to select the right tool for the job at hand. Part of the learning process is figuring out which technique is appropriate for what sort of problem. In most scientific subjects, a good teacher would seek to emphasize the value of & distinction between 3 things: concept, notation and technique. As the student matures, ideas about special and general cases and proof are brought in, probably first in middle-school geometry.

There is some evidence that the cognitive faculties used for abacus-maths are different from and independent of language - perhaps it exploits more pictorial, pattern recognition representations in the brain. I think it has value simply as good mental exercise. Don't think of it merely as a prelude to school maths. A poor teacher can confuse a kid in maths class - abacus or no abacus! You need a good teacher to teach the kids to recognize animals in the mathematical zoo. As long as these distinctions between concept, notation, technique/manipulation, proof and generality are pointed out, children will do fine. It is not the abacus or quick math tricks alone that do harm to the child - it is failing to teach them the underlying ideas, failing to help them develop their mathematical intuition in favor of a plug-and-chug approach.

Also see the following articles (& comments therein !):
World's fastest number game wows spectators and scientists | Alex Bellos | Science | guardian.co.uk

Mental abacus does away with words - life - 09 August 2011 - New Scientist

Japanese abacus teacher wins Mental Calculation World Cup | Science | guardian.co.uk

 

Continuing from my previous post, here is an example of what I mean:

Most kids learn arabic numerals and Roman numerals pretty early in school right? Now if I were teaching kids, I would ask the student to multiply XXIII times LVI or 23 x 56. Obviously, any kid will recognize that manipulating the Arabic numerals is far easier!!

Then I would draw the kids into a discussion designed to recognize that both the Roman and Arabic numerals are equally good at representation i.e. they are expressively equivalent. Both systems can be used to write numbers. However, the Arabic numeral representation is easier to manipulate in calculations i.e. it is procedurally superior. See? The point here is that there is more than one way to do something, but not all ways are equally good. I think most kids can grasp this easily. The same is true of an abacus, paper calculations, calculators, computers and so on. Later in their studies, this kid will learn that in computer science, the binary system is superior to the decimal system of representation because of the way computers are built. This is the same idea as above, at a different level -see?

In the example above, the concept = the idea of a number, the representation = Roman or Arabic system, the technique = the algorithm we use for multiplication, which we all learn in grade school. The big idea behind why our algorithm works is that the Arabic numeral system represents numbers in the units, tens, hundreds form we all know ... the decimal placement system. When we write 253, we are actually saying 200 + 50 + 3.

So, if a teacher points out the ideas that underlie mathematical manipulation, kids will know what the abacus is good for and what it is not good for. My summary response to the OP's original question would be:

(1) The abacus is good mental exercise. It won't break your child's brain. It can help 'extend' its capacities.
(2) It will develop certain cognitive faculties, probably some sort of pattern recognition.
(3) It can help the child's ability to do rapid calculations.
(4) It will not get in the way of a child's ability to learn school math as long as distinctions between different techniques and ideas are drawn and taught explicitly.