SHENMO MOTTO: Virtue & Wisdom

Some time ago, Ma Xin from the Culture Development Department of Shenmo visited the “USA” abacus mental math educational institution in Japan. He attended the class to experience the abacus mental math teaching in Japan, which caused a lot of thinking. What are the similarities and differences between childhood abacus mental math teaching in China and Japan? What are the strengths of each other? Now, let’s find out together.

 

Some time ago, I went to Japan and met Tsujikubo Rinne, the best and youngest abacus mental math student in the world. At the age of 7, she has reached Level 10 of Japanese abacus mental math, which is the highest level in Japan. She also won the Chinese game show The Brain twice. I also met her teacher, Mr. Takayanagi. It made me think a lot.

 

The abacus was born in China, then the abacus mental math spread widely in Japan and gave a far-reaching influence there. It’s the spirit of the craftsman and the animism of the Japanese that enabled the multi-benefit abacus mental math to blossom.

 

Aside from the strategic thinking and cultural philosophy of running a school, I’d like to talk about the abacus mental math as a subject.

 

Let’s divide the abacus mental math teaching into class control and subject skill.

 

Shenmo is skilled in class control. The leading-in before class, the setting of class, the connection between teaching links, and the teachers’ attention and enlightenment for each student, as well as the humanistic care such as “equality, respect, trust, appreciation, focus, and encouragement” all show that. In the relaxing and lively Shenmo class, the teacher arouses children’s curiosity and enthusiasm in various ways such as competitions, stories, etc. We all know clearly about that, so I won’t talk it further. Now let’s take a closer look at the strengths of abacus mental math teaching in Japan.

 

The abacus mental math class in Japan is quite different. Take the school where Mr. Takayanagi works as an example, through the efforts of several generations, it is considered to be the best abacus mental math school in Japan, both in qualifications and in education quality, making it a representative school in Japan. Their classes are more professional, straightforward and exhaustive, but the classroom atmosphere is a little bit dull.

 

Due to the different emphasis in terms of culture and education, the Japanese children have developed perseverance in early childhood, so they present more  self-control than the Chinese children. In one session, a child suddenly cried, and the teacher, merely out of courtesy, asked him about why and then left him crying alone and went to coach other children. After a while, the child stopped crying and took a piece of question paper silently to continue the practice.

 

In addition to the difference between the children, the Japanese abacus mental math teachers also present stronger mental math ability and more professional skills. Just by taking a look at the child’s wrong answers, they can conclude the problem of the child. But this conclusion is not general as in which question type does the child make mistakes, such as making 5 or making 10, or successive carrying or borrowing; instead, it’s specific and accurate to one particular mnemonic rhyme or the combined utilization of a few mnemonic rhymes. As soon as the teacher gets the weaknesses of the student in learning, he/she will select more questions in the same type for the student to practice.

 

In this way, the children’s learning and training are highly targeted and more efficient, and their blind spots and weaknesses in learning can be easily localized, which are important for all mathematics-related learning. In our own experience, in addition to practicing, localizing the blind spots and weaknesses in learning is also the key to improvement.

 

The abacus mental math teaching in Japan is purer and simpler. Instead of referring to the key to exercises, they do the calculations by themselves to correct the students’ answers. From the professional skills, Japanese teachers are indeed better than us.

 

Of course, such a situation is caused by complicated reasons, which are mainly the differences in culture and school orientation between China and Japan.

 

Relatively speaking, it seems that Chinese children need more encouragement and attention in class and the teachers need to do their best to arouse their curiosity and enthusiasm, which shows that Chinese children have lower tolerance and resistance to frustration. In addition, the early childhood education in China, especially the after-school quality education such as Shenmo Education, always arrange more time to communicate with parents, so that the family and school can reach an agreement on educational concepts and ideas. Therefore, the strengths of education in China is that the children are more energetic and creative (well, at least, they are more creative than Japanese children). It also reflects the flourishing development of China. The serious atmosphere of Japanese education also reflects the aging problem and the economic stagnation in recent decades that Japan faces.

 

Therefore, I think that we should both draw on our own strengths—the vitality, mobilization and humanistic care in class, and learn from Japan—their exhaustive and straightforward spirit in teaching.

 

Strict education and relaxed education have always been one of the issues in the education circle. Shenmo Education believes in and adopts happy education, but the essence of education is the continuous challenge and training, and it is necessary to overcome the shortcomings of ourselves, which is not quite “happy”. Therefore, for happy education, the happiness should come from the persistence and the harvest in learning as well as the self-breakthrough.

 

The more you persevere in learning, the more you focus on it, and the happier you are. On the contrary, the more you give up, the more you distract, and the unhappier you are. For Chinese teachers, we have many means to arouse students’ curiosity and enthusiasm, such as the flexible guidance, competition, etc., the setting of which aim at making the children more active in class, but we should realize that the inner joy must be found in the course itself and be got by achieving the course goals.

 

To provide a really happy education and happy class, in addition to creating a cheerful atmosphere, the teachers should also give students “practical things”, making them find happiness in making progress. I believe that everyone has his/her own thought about the comparison of abacus mental math teaching in China and Japan. Improving the quality of education and the professional skills of teachers is an important breakthrough for the improvement of Shenmo teachers in the next step.