- April 25, 2024
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Sometimes to make life a slight bit easier we need to take a couple steps back to reestablish the successes we’ve all endured in the past. Although for financial professional and author of two books based on Vedic mathematics Richard Blum, he agrees we should take mathematics as far back as before even Christopher Columbus sailed into this extravagant country we call America to find that sense of simplicity.
This type of simplicity to math originated thousands of years ago in present-day India is actually called Vedic math.
William Thurston once quoted,” mathematics is not about numbers, equations, computations, or algorithms. It is about understanding.”
Richard Blum has been studying Vedic math for over 15 years, and he believes the subject of mathematics has lost its ability to be able to find creativity in the minds of the students because of the hardship of just trying to understand how to make it through the problem. Blum also believes that this form of ancient math is a technique that will get to the answer to a math problem in a much quicker approach than any other method.
“There are simpler ways to solve these problems in math, but because we are teaching in a way that makes students have to work around the problem instead of straight to the answer, we have lost that ability to make math fun and enjoyable because the students are restricted to the creativity of their minds,” said Blum.
Blum then described a story that he said he wished was recorded on video. “I was once asked to come to a school after the students went to lunch to help these kids understand math a little better. I agreed, but I asked them if I could borrow a student from their classes that wasn’t very good at math at all thirty minutes prior to meeting with all the other students,” Blum said. ”So I met with the kid and then thirty minutes later I asked for one random volunteer to come up, in which that same student raised his hand. I then challenged that student with the rest of the class and even teachers with calculators.”
What happens next to even Blum’s mind was beyond belief.
“I asked the class and the student on stage what the solution was to 45 squared. Without hesitation, the student I worked with had the answer immediately… ‘4225’, he says. Fifteen seconds later, far longer than this kid even answered the question, the answer was verified correct. The smile on this kid was priceless; it lit up the entire room.”
As you might imagine, Blum is a strong believer that this form of math should be taught in the school system worldwide.
“To answer this politically correct, I would say that we shouldn’t use this form of math to primarily solve problems, but use them to check your answer. If I say that though, students will check their answers by that theory and find that it takes far shorter to check their answers than to actually do the problem. So, in my own opinion, I think we should absolutely use Vedic math to do these problems!”
Richard Blum also teaches Vedic math to home-schooled children along with helping out some Indian tribes as well.
In fact, Blum says he was invited to go to North Carolina by former principle of an Indian school and author Ben Chavis for about 5 to 6 days to teach Chavis’s three week math camp teaching young Indian students this ancient style math.
“I’m not getting paid to go up there, and that never factored in the reason why I was going anyways. These kids don’t have the advantage most other kids have of a satisfying education. I want to make a difference in these kids’ lives. That’s what makes this trip worthwhile.”
