Mastermind Abacus

Nowadays abacus are also used as toys by children. These are among the things that they see quite often and are familiar with them. When children are asked to learn arithmetical calculation on their abacus they feel like playing and in this way they learn a lot without getting bored at all. Children feel happy with something like abacus because of its shape. Anything, which has rods and beads attached to it, makes them feel good and relaxing while learning.

This process is easy to adapt for the beginners and puts less stress on the mind of children. Every bead of the abacus is assigned a particular value and it is relatively easy to learn those values and keep performing calculations on the device, as the beads are assigned certain values therefore there is no need to keep anything in mind rather keep fingers on the beads and place beads in their calculated positions. The result can be easily inferred from the positions of the beads on the rod.

It is a true assistant for anyone who wants to perform his calculations very quickly and with full authority. This is the reason behind the fact that even in this modern era there is thought to be a need to teach children to learn perform calculations using abacus.

There may arise a question in one’s mind that why is there a need to teach children to use abacus or to teach them solving arithmetical problems using abacus in this time of advanced technology. But the fact is that even if the advancements are made in the technology making it possible for human beings to perform complex calculations and to explore new dimensions in the field of knowledge, the mind of the child is completely empty and it is to be written on. Child’s mind could grab some things with difficulty and has the tendency of forgetting learnt topics after some time.

With the help of abacus simple arithmetical functions are easy to learn especially multiplication which may seem easier to an adult to perform but are very difficult for the juvenile to understand.

Sometimes it is needed to teach children how to use abacus. For instance blind children are taught to use abacus because they cannot perform calculations on the paper. Abacus has proved out to be an ideal tool for those people as it allows them to calculate easily and quickly while being reliable. The use of abacus is easy to understand for the new beginner and it also helps in developing the mind of the children.

At the initial learning stage of a child it is almost impossible to learn all of the things in a flash. Abacus has this innate tendency to design the model for the good development of a child’s brain. The study has shown that the children which have used abacus in their past could perform arithmetical calculations more quickly and comfortably when they are grown-ups.

This is due to the fact that they have the golden rule of calculating long figures with the help of broken packets of that figure in their minds and it allows them to perform more conveniently in the later stage of their life.

There are some schools in the world who teach little kids with the help of abacus. Abacus is still used in some Asian and Latin American ever in this changing technology of the world. Even now with its modern day competitors, electronic calculators, abacus stands as a comprehensive tool for simple arithmetic calculations.

Mesopotamian abacus

The period 2700–2300 BC saw the first appearance of the Sumerian abacus, a table of successive columns which delimited the successive orders of magnitude of their sexagesimal number system.

Some scholars point to a character from the Babylonian cuneiform which may have been derived from a representation of the abacus. It is the belief of Carruccio (and other Old Babylonian scholars) that Old Babylonians “may have used the abacus for the operations of addition and subtraction; however, this primitive device proved difficult to use for more complex calculations”.

Egyptian abacus

The use of the abacus in Ancient Egypt is mentioned by the Greek historian Herodotus, who writes that the Egyptians manipulated the pebbles from right to left, opposite in direction to the Greek left-to-right method. Archaeologists have found ancient disks of various sizes that are thought to have been used as counters. However, wall depictions of this instrument have not been discovered,^[9] casting some doubt over the extent to which this instrument was used.

With the passage of time the modern day use of abacus has changed from a mere calculating device to a brain development tool for the growing children from the age group of 6 to 14.

It is proven fact that the Left part of the brain plays a dominant role in the analytical processes, while creative processes mainly take place in the Right part. It is important to realize, however, that this is not a black and white picture, set in stone. In fact, all brain processes take place through the brain as a whole; there is just a general preference in functionality. It is also important to note that the brain is extremely flexible, and different parts are able to take over certain functions, should they become nonfunctional in their normal location due to some kind of brain injury.

Whole brain integration means using the Left and the Right side of the brain together, which improves the use of your brain by 5-10%.

There are several activities that have proven to stimulate the Right and the Left parts of the brain simultaneously. One of the well known activity is Abacus where brain exercise is done in such a way that it stimulates both parts of the brain i.e., right and left part simultaneously and therefore can be a very powerful tool for creation and planning.

When children use both hands to move the abacus beads to perform arithmetic calculations, there is quick communication between the hands and the brain that stimulates both the right and left hemispheres of the brain. This promotes rapid and balanced whole brain development.

If a child starts learning the abacus before being taught traditional arithmetic, there is minimal conflict and the child will easily work within both systems. If a child starts the program later, having already received traditional foundations, there may be a slightly extended learning period for the child to accept and integrate the abacus method.

Though this world is left brain dominated world, but many famous lefties have graced this earth. Some of the famous artists who are left handers have dominated right brain like MF hussain used both of his hands and he was one of India’s best-known artists, Amitabh bachchan is also a left hander and has brilliance unlimited, Appel, Karel were Dutch Painter, Sculptor and Printmaker, Leonardo da Vinci, Florentine Polymath etc.

So by using both the hands together with the help of abacus, a child can become Genius.

Abacus is an ancient Chinese calculator. Abacus is also considered to be forefather of computers as all the computer algorithms are based on this age old tool. It was founded 2000 years ago and is universally used.

This concept is popular in China, Malaysia, and Australia and now in India. Abacus consists of strings enclosed in rectangular frame. It has beads on the string and each bead has a unique value associated with it.  The Abacus is used to teach children where they use both the hands to manipulate the beads.

In the initial stages, they take the help of abacus to work out the problems. Gradually the abacus is withdrawn and they use only the image of the abacus built-in their minds. This enables them to achieve a high level of speed, efficiency, accuracy, concentration and increase in memory power.

The abacus was invented by Charles Babbage though it’s now being used by the entire world to turn on the mental abilities of young brains. Abacus training sharpens our memory and increases our ability to perform mental calculations. Abacus was designed in such a manner so that the brain visualizes the abacus while performing calculations which automatically activates the right part of our brain especially when we move our fingers over the beads and talk aloud while solving the problems. However, one needs to enjoy the abacus education training process, only then will one be able to truly benefit from the technique.

The energy and abilities of our mind are not limited – it is the master organ which takes all the decisions of the body. The left brain is also known as the digital brain whereas the right brain helps in creative pursuits. Both sides of our brain need to work in sync with each other and that is where abacus training helps us. Abacus Training has become increasingly popular in India of late and helps the young minds understand the great number plan on which the universe is being run. The abacus calculation methods help us in learning number manipulation skills, decimal grasp and digit correlation among other skills. Even the most brilliant students find the use of abacus a great help while solving problems.

The students can use the abacus training to calculate arithmetical problems rapidly. Later on, the students can also perform the calculations without using the abacus, by just visualizing the abacus in their minds. Abacus also helps them develop new and innovative methods of mastering arithmetic, rather than being dependent on just the orthodox methods of learning calculations otherwise taught by the conventional education system. Abacus answers the primary need of the students to make fast and accurate calculations.