Professor Homunculus sez:

I’m not exactly sure what to do with this kind of comment. Technically it is “spam.” A blatant unsolicited advertisement. Although I sell products as well, I know it is really bad form to just go to other people’s websites and drop my advertisement on it without even so much as commenting on the post.

But I’ll let this one go because of a few factors.

One, the product is a bit interesting. I can’t say I’d ever endorse something like it, but the method is a least a bit of a mild diversion.

Another factor is this - since the commenter has opened himself up for it, here’s my take on it:

This is exactly the kind of pap method of talking down to children without actually teaching them anything that I eschew. I’m sure “Mister Numbers” is a nice guy, but the old “See-kiddies-math-can-be-fun” bit only works for kids who would accept any old method anyway.

Although the actual method is interesting, I think the only actually interesting thing about it would be the explanation of why it works. That would only work for people who are way past the stage of learning simple multiplication, though. The method itself is just as complicated as memorizing tables.

There’s no serious streamlining, and the methods are not extensible. You need a different method for each of the digits. Cute, but not really effective.

The specious claim of “right brain” math appears pretty flimsy, as well.

So, Tom, I’d be happy to have some readers check out your site and decide for themselves, but next time, I wish you’d show a little more “netiquette” before you spam me. Had you asked first, I would have mentioned that I didn’t think you’d want my critique.

I love to be contradicted if I can learn something from it! Thanks for setting me straight.

I had a friend from Russia who was a math professor, and she said that when she was a kid they had other methods for learning the tables, and multiplication in general. There was a special Russian abacus (I’ve seen it elsewhere, too) and sometimes used what I’ve heard called, “the Russian peasant method,” and they didn’t obsess on the tables, as schools tend to do here.

I wonder what the factors are that make Russian students generally so much better than Americans at basic math. Got any Ideas? I’d love the input.

There have been reports that Chinese, Japanese, and Indian students are not as good with basic math as past generations were, since the use of abacii has declined and the use of calculators has gone up.

On the other hand, the somewhat-recent Japanese craze of the ancient art of Anzan (mental math using an imaginary soroban) has produced loads of kids who are amazing calculators.