What Experts Say

Learn And Teach With Pleasure

I am a Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and have been studying various aspects of human behavior from basic learning in childhood to loss of cognitive abilities in old age, for the past 50 years. I am convinced that to-day’s child needs to supplement his learning with modern techniques of acquisition of knowledge using traditional methods and improving upon them.

With increasing stress factors and multitude of psychological difficulties, every facet of child’s mental faculty has to be tapped. Unless learning becomes a pleasure, the desired growth will not be there.

In modern days, the traditional methods of teaching and learning have drastically changed for the better. There cannot be uniform teaching for all students in a class room situation and learning has to be beyond comprehension. Each brain has its own cognitive style and capabilities and the extent of difficulties in learning being so vast with multiple hidden behavior problems, that the task of a teacher becomes very challenging.

It has to embrace all aspects of cognition and all the senses have to be utilized to get maximum benefit from subject inputs. A good teacher is one, who understands all these overt and covert issues and engages a student in a meaningful manner, which is outside the scope of traditional teaching methods.

Primary education begins with the development of language skills coupled with Mathematical skills.

The Chinese/Japanese method of Math that has been modified to include the best practices of teaching is an excellent option available to young children to-day.

I find this a scientifically sound method of teaching math because of the following reasons.

• The visual and tactile stimuli that are used to teach mathematical operations make learning logical and permanent.
• Children of different age groups make tremendous gains not only in Math but in other subjects like Science and language, the exercises used to improve speed and accuracy are cross curricular.
• Students are trained to perform mathematical operations orally and this gives them a chance to kick their brain cells to perform better.
• The group activities and learning situations created in the class make it an excellent supplementary program that helps kids perform better at school.
• From early classes they develop confidence in their learning which boosts their personality functioning.

Prof. M.A.M.Khan MBBS
F.R.C.Psy (England), F.R.A.N.Z,C.P (Australia)
Fellow of The Indian Psychiatric Society
Consultant Psychiatrist in Behaviour Sciences,
Visiting Faculty to several Universities and Business Houses
Psychological Advisor to many modern schools

All I need to know I learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum

EVER SEEN AN ABAQUS? You know, those centi- pedelike things with wooden beads in rows. They’re sold mostly in knickknack import shops, for wall decoration. But, in fact, an abacus is an adding machine, calculator, and computer. On second thought, that’s not quite true. The abacus is just a visual record of the computations going on in the mind of the person using it
Millions of people in Asia still use the abacus daily. And it has been in use there for a couple of thousand years or more. Not only is it an effective practical tool, but it is nice to look at. Nice to hold and touch. Wood and brass and ivory. And the older they get and the longer they are handled by a human being, the lovelier they get–smooth and dark and polished. They will last for a lifetime; they will never need updating; all the software needed to drive them is between your ears; and if they break they can be fixed by an eight-year¬¬old with household tools.

The presence of the abacus puts some kinds of progress in perspective. I remember a time when a japanese-American computer conglomerate moved into the Chinese market in a big Way. In order to demonstrate the value of its small pocket calculators, it arranged a contest. The great abacus-PC shoot-out. The guy who won-the one with the abacus, of course-was named Chan Kai Kit. Hong Kong Chinese-a senior clerk for a shipping company. It is true that the operator of the little computer did handle the pile of invoices forty¬four seconds faster than Chan Kai Kit and his abacus. But the computer got the wrong answer. Seems the machine operator was ín too big a hurry to prove how smart his machine was and fed it fuzzy facts. Much face was lost.

Now don't get me wrong. Pocket calculators are here to stay, and they have their place. A Luddite I am not-machines are not evil in themselves. And a care-ful, thoughtful man like Chan Kai Kit might do even better with his own pocket calculator instead of his abacus-who knows? It's just that I'm a sentimental-ist about the wonders of the human hand and mind. And when I find evidence that it can stili hoid its own in the face of the Wizardry of the electronic circuitry of little chips, I am pleased. It is comforting to know that some very old and very simple ways of getting from one place to another still work.

And I ponder the fact that an ancient and worn abacus will find its way to the walls of the twentieth Century as a thing of art and Wonder, made lovely by its usefulness and made useful by its beauty. I have an old wooden bowl and an elderly chopping knife I would stack up against a food processor any day. It’s the same story..