Abacus – math’s or a brain development?

It has been a matter of concern for the parents to judge the benefits of abacus. Should they enroll their child for the benefit of math’s or should they enroll their child for whole brain development. The big question is what to do?
Either ways you should enroll your child for all the benefits that a student gets through abacus training, because both of the above are correct. Yes it develops the mental calculating abilities of the student, to understand better Abacus is a brain development program where the tool is the abacus & the media is maths, the time the child starts his abacus training the development of the left & right part of the brain starts simultaneously.
It not only improves their performance in math’s but also in other subjects due to the whole brain development. It is another fact that people promote different aspect of the abacus to suit their needs. But the fact of the matter remains that abacus helps whole brain development and fast maths calculation is a fallout effect of this.
Don’t get confused, because any fact you may consider ultimately your child will benefit from abacus and that’s the main advantage you should look for.

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Transformation of Abacus

Abacus the ancient calculating device from the Mongolian countries is now more than 3000 years old. This simple calculating device has gone through a transformation. This transformation is not only as far the very design is concerned but also in its actual use.
When abacus came into existence it was a nothing less than a revolution in the society then, because it facilitated the calculating system. Till the advent of abacus many methods like, keeping beads in groups of tens, or tying fixed no of knots, etc, were in use to make calculations beyond the finger counts.
The Chinese & the Japanese have a lot to contribute in popularizing this calculating device across the globe. In fact this almost became a household object & a compulsory part of a student’s school bag in countries like China & Japan. The business men in China, Japan, and Malaysia could not think of conducting business without an Abacus being used for calculating.
The abacus enabled the business community to calculate figure in Billions that too with absolute accuracy.
The abacus has to its credit to being the basis for the advanced calculator in use today. To an extent the logics used in calculation with abacus has also contributed to the modern Computer.
As referred to in the very beginning of the write up that the Abacus has seen many changes as compared to its original shape & use, this I referred to was especially with regards to its use in the modern days as a “Whole Brain Development” device.
Modification in the process of its use (Using both the hands to Calculate with abacus) is considered to activate the neurons in left & right part of the Brain, thereby enabling the user enhances the use of the whole brain.
The effects are best seen in the children between the ages of 5 to 14. This is considered to be the age when the neural activities in the brain are at their peak & so is the learning ability of the child.
The training for whole brain development with abacus involves lot of practice & mental calculations & most importantly time (More than 2.5 years to actually master the calculating abilities with abacus).

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Play While Learning

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.

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Necessity of 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.

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Mesopotamian abacus & Egyptian abacus

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.

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Abacus the precursor to Modern day calculator

Abacus is the device that has been around for more than 3000 years and has played a significant role in the development our modern calculating our system. It is such a remarkable achievement of human race that it has made us proud. Since the dawn of human beings on this earth they have encountered with many situations in which they have to calculate. The situations has got complex over time and has led to led many new inventions for the convenience of calculations. This development process has had many stages. It relates back to the prehistoric time and the first stage of development involves the construction of abacus. The wooden calculator helps teach mathematical skills, patterning and color recognition, and slide and count the beads with this timeless counting frame. It is also shown that it leads to a much better brain development. Although the abacus does not qualify as a mechanical calculator, it certainly stands proud as one of first mechanical aids to calculation and
if you know how to master an abacus then you can even out beat a modern calculator in terms of accuracy and speed. It also helps to teach young children perform their arithmetic calculations especially multiplication as this causes a lot of problem to young children and abacus makes it easy to perform.

Abacus is also used to teach blind children to perform arithmetical calculations while other students learn the same things on paper. Some errors can encounter while calculating on abacus if one is not well
trained but this can also happen with paper functions. So, we can say Abacus is one of those devices that is been constantly taught to the children for centuries and it seems that its importance may never
end in this ever-changing world. Abacus has got the place of great importance in the history of mathematics. One can easily say that abacus is the precursor of the modern day computer with the invention of abacus.

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Abacus- the evolution

According to historians Abacus is believed to have evolved in around 300 B.C, but the debate still going on he base of development of abacus. The closest resemblance is the Babylonians salamis tablet which has the same counting system as abacus, but many other races have been using the same system in other ways i.e. not on the tool but on other mediums such as bone, woods, pebbles, calculi.
The roman and the Greek abacus resembled each other. After salamis tablet which was made from stone, these two abacuses were also made from stone but were different in size and numerical representation. The working of the abacus was more or less the same. The Greek had slaves and booth. The master and slaves used abacus like tool to ensure correct counting in trade. It was a good practice as the government could keep record of the tax, debts and other financial needs more accurately.
Many other abacuses were developed in different parts of the world, and the method of use was more or less similar to that of the Chinese system. These abacus were different is size, color, material, and as per the specific needs of a particular civilization, in fact the tools were synchronized as per their needs. With the globalization having a common impact on each nation’s educational system, the use of the tools increased and became widely popular among the educationist.
The Japanes Soroban abacus was developed by the famous mathematician Seki Kowa by 1920. He removed 1 bead from the upper and the lower respective decks. Soroban has 1 base 4 and till today it is the most widely used Abacus.

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Abacus Stimulates Whole Brain Development

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.

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MYSTERY OF ABACUS

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.

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Believe the Abacus

MODERN ABACUS

Believe it or not, the abacus is still used by store and business owners in different parts of the world. This is especially true for places like Africa, Japan, China, and Russia. Wooded beads are usually what make up your average abacus today. However, in places like Japan, bicone beads are still used because they’re considered to move more easier.

In China, they refer to an abacus as a “Suanpan.” These can be used for more than just counting. Like the Cramner abacus, these also can be used for multiplication, addition, division, subtraction, and even cube and square roots in a fast amount of time.

You would think that since the abacus has been around for hundreds of centuries, it has to be outdated and useless, right? Wrong! It’s hardly what you would consider old-fashioned. To prove this, a contest was held back in November 1946 in Tokyo. A man by the name of Kiyoshi Matsuazaki used a regular Japanese soroban. The other man, a US military man by the name of Nathan Wood, used a regular electric calculator. For the contest, both instruments were tested to see how fast and accurate they each would be at performing addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Lastly, a final test would include a problem that combined all four. The winner was the Soroban, beating the calculator 4 times out of 5. The only thing the electric calculator beat the abacus at was in multiplying.

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