Tuesday, December 07, 2010

125 + 207 = eeerr ???!!!

I have been medically certified to be allergic to Ampicillin and all antibiotics in that family since 1986. However there is a greater allergy I have. An allergy to mathematics.

It has gotten so bad that my mind goes into freeze mode whenever a situation arise that requires me to add, subtract, multiply or divide. It is not so much that I am bad at mathematics (I was a below average student in Maths but have never flunk any papers) It is just that my mental ability to process numbers is somehow not developed.

My husband calls me plain lazy to think and although deep inside I agree with him, it has become almost a physical thing. My brain goes into freeze mode and I get into a frantic state where I either whip out my mobile to use the calculator when I am alone or look helplessly to my husband to provide the answer (cue “I’m a Barbie girl” song)

Part of the reason is perhaps I have never had a good foundation in Maths. When I first started learning Math in school, I always hear everyone around me say “I’ve never been good at Maths” and “Eee I hate Maths. Good luck to you” “So far no one is our family is good at Maths”. It was almost inherent that I kind of self prophesize that I will also be horrid at Maths. I’ve heard of stories where a person hated Maths but because she/he had an exceptionally inspirational teacher who made the subject interesting he/she develop an interest in the subject. Unfortunately I never had such a teacher or role model.

More than anything else, I have never had the interest and repeated wrong answers kind of broke my self confidence in the subject and wilted any motivation I had to do well.

I once met an ex-classmate who said he was majoring in Mathematics at the Uni. I remember looking at him like he was an alien from outer space and thought to myself, “Why would anyone want to major in Mathematics ? “

I realize now that Mathematics is very essential and it is very disadvantageous if we do not have the necessary skills for it. Now that I am a parent, I would very much like to ensure I do not prejudice my child against any set of knowledge. I want them to be the very best they can be and will do anything within my power to provide the necessary environment for them to excel. Which is how I come across Kumon.

I have done quite a bit of research into this. I like the methodology for the following reasons

a) It starts off the child at a manageable level and allows the child to build their self confidence.
b) It is one to one & customised according to the child’s ability, very much similar to the Montessori method which I strongly adhere to.
c) It is a daily thing (this has its cons too)
d) It instills independent learning and will allow the child to learn to solve problems on their own
e) it develops the child’s mental capability and gives them the advantage to master arithmetic, the very basic of a lot of mathematics concepts.
f) It is independent of the school syllabus and allows the child to learn concepts beyond those taught at his age in school

I have reservations on this methodology because of the following
a) It is very tedious, requires lots of repetition in order to achieve mastery and can be very boring for a child with an inquisitive mind.
b) It gives the child a inflated sense of confidence when they progress beyond their school level and can bring rise to arrogance and over-confidence & in its worst case scenario, confuses the child when he is taught the same lesson in school
c) It kills creativity and can rebound & cause said child to HATE Math (unlikely though, it seems)
d) It is expensive and will take a sizable chunk of my disposable income (something I hope the hubby will subsidise) It will be worse when my Muzaffar comes of age to join Kumon classes
e) It involves very detailed parent involvement to monitor that the child does his worksheet every day w/o fail and I may drop the ball when work and family commitments comes to the fore. (thinking of family vacation )
f) I know that Kumon will be beneficial for Maths but I have my doubts over the English syllabus (more on that later)
I have gone for the Parent orientation and like what I see for now. Tonight I will be sending my 4 year old boy for the diagnostic session to see which level he should join.

If I may make an unbiased assessment of my son, I would say he is above average but he has a very short attention span. He also thrives on praises and positive encouragement in order to motivate him to do well and take the next step. He is discouraged very easily when he meets a roadblock. I hope that Kumon will give him a head start and his bolstered self confidence will spur him to want to explore and reach his full potential.

I have been told that the first 3-6 months is the most difficult as the child needs to get into the routine of doing kumon worksheets daily and resistance is to be expected.

I will provide more periodic updates on whether I actually go through with enrolling my Mubarak into Kumon and how he (and I) fare with time.

4 comments:

Musang said...

you are back blogging?!! yay!!!!

shsuya said...

hello A,

hahah yeah its been a while hasn't it. The lost phone incident created an itch to start blogging again. Stay tuned !!

Anonymous said...

hey girl!
yes, i agree kumon is a great place to instill math excellence in our kids. we sent our daughter there for the last year and now that she's 5 she's able to do simple plus & minus questions.

the only drawback we find in the system is that it may be too one-dimensional, which is no problem if your kid loves repetition and you (the parents) have the nerves of steel to encourage your kid to do the daily exercises.

our daughter gets bored with doing the same things over & over again, so we may be sending her off to some other math learning program. but hey, we just might enroll her back into kumon one day when she's more mature and self-disciplined :)

good luck to u guys!

btw, i did search for u in FB, but er, the profiles don't seem to match lah, ehheh

shsuya said...

Wow.. good for her ! Mubarak has just started in Dec 10 and is so far so good. Yes I agree Kumon can be very 1-D and the stress is more on the parent than the child. (haha) And I think instead of helping it will be detrimental to the learning of languages as it will kill the interest in the long run. But for Maths at this stage, it is very helpful.
I think I am not visible on FB. Y dun u email me your details and I will find you. shsuya@hotmail.com