The ‘curious’ case of abacus and mental math

Children sat on the floor, curiously, facing a large abacus with yellow beads. When asked ‘do you find maths easy?, the reply was a faint yes. The question was repeated and this time, there was pin drop silence.

On Sunday morning, an abacus workshop was organised by ‘Math 2 Merit’, at T.V.S. Rao Srikrishna Vidya Mandir for the children in the age group of seven to fifteen, as part of the two-day The Hindu Young World Carnival. The concept of abacus, a calculating frame, dates back to 2nd Century BC in China. Most children knew the purpose of the abacus but were reasonably puzzled when Sudha Rani Epuri, Managing Director, Math 2 Merit, called abacus a device that helps calculate numbers faster.

Workshop

The workshop began with explaining the structure of an abacus and each child was given a 13-rod abacus. The children’s jaws dropped when they learnt calculations up to 10 lakh could be done on the given abacus. Later, worksheets were distributed to test the understanding of abacus.

Visakapatnam-based Math 2 Merit was formed in 2011. Since then it has grown globally. Today, in India, there are centres in Visakhapatnam,Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Berhampur, Bhagavatam and Tuni. Overseas, there are three centres in the United Kingdom and one in the US. “We are the pioneers in one-on-one online abacus classes to the students in Guildford, Birmingham, Woking, Isle of Man, Kent, London, Atlanta, Florida and New Jersey,” said Ms. Sudha Rani. The increase in self-confidence among the children was evident. Everyone was eager to take the centre stage to solve problems from the worksheet. The focused drawing the numbers currently and 2 digit addition and subtraction. Nine-year-old, R Akshay said, “This workshop makes maths easy.”

The workshop was divided into two parts — juniors (seven to 11) and seniors (11 to 15). The juniors workshop started at 10 am to 1230 pm. The workshop for seniors started at 1 pm to 3 pm. The total strength of the workshop was around 50 students. In the senior’s workshop, along with basics, they were introduced how to add, subtract and multiply three-digit numbers using an abacus. It ended with an IPL quiz organised by Indian Terrain. Every child got a bag from Indian Terrain and a participation certificate.