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Mathematics and Life 57 The 11 letter magic

 The 11 letter magic 


Today I am posting my creation done in 1992 which got into print in 1993. That time, as an active school maths teacher, I wrote this and got printed a large number of posters. After nearly 30 years, I still agree with most points, although the perspective has changed. That time was aimed towards students to do,  now it aimed at teachers like myself.



Let me rewrite them here as the image is not clear enough.


Master the basics. The teacher should try to first create a base to introduce new topics. Is it surprising that in spite of so many education commissions, reports etc, we do not have a known list of basics a child entering a class is supposed to know ? Please share if you know any.

 Approach the problem properly. More often than not, due to teaching not being process oriented, students spend a lot of productive time in trial and error. 

Think before you solve. We teachers hardly teach strategy to attack a problem. Our emphasis, training, is to just kill the problem and not solve it efficiently.

Have confidence in your working. It is the most common scene to see very kids erase more than they write. Lack of confidence in processes is visible and we, as the teachers, need to empower the child. Specially the girl child who are stereotyped to believe they are no good at mathematics.


Estimate the answer. This skill is very useful in most competitive examinations where many times looking at the options carefully one can sense the answer.


Minimize the calculation errors and process. Once again a function of conceptual clarity, this skill needs to be developed at the earliest stage.


Apply the correct formula. More often than not, due to poor conceptual clarity students often go the wrong route and realize much later that they have applied a wrong formula. Therefore, give more attention to concept formation, conceptual clarity than mugging up formulas mindlessly and applying indiscriminately.


Tricks to calculate faster are surely welcome in highly competitive environment. Knowing concepts properly, using knowledge of tables carefully are the best tricks to do fast calculations.


Invent new solutions, approaches to solve. Again this happens once your concepts, processes are in place and now you wish to go for excellence. 


Comprehend the problem properly. Specially in the lower classes, children tend to hurry up to solve problems and unfortunately, some parents and even teachers train them to look for hinting words and solve fast. But this habit may give great results when the degree of freedom is less or sums are direct. However, in more complex problems, this does not work and becomes counterproductive. We need to make children understand the problems properly rather than doing quick fixes.


Study maths regularly. Reapproaching, revising, concepts is one of the surest ways to get excellence in maths. Doing maths needs to be part of daily habits. 


Dr Prakash Moghe

Beyond Abacus

8085906062, 7489447223

drpnmoghe@gmail.com

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