Category: speed and mental math

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I’m tipping my mitt a little early, because the intermediate multiplication lessons are not finished yet. But I thought people should have easy access to the basic method for advanced multiplication. This is the tip of the iceberg, but everyone should at least be able to do this method. Anything less than that is either merely standard or substandard.

Here’s the “mystery algorithm” for 26 * 31, or any other set of two-digit numbers. Keep in mind that the description is much longer than the problem should take. After a little practice, it should take no longer than 10 seconds to do a problem like this in your head.

Step 1:
Multiply the digits in the ones columns of both numbers together. That would be the 1 ( of 31) and the 6 (of 26). That gives you 6. That’s the final digit of the product.

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(If you use a little imagination you can guess the title of this article.)

This article concerns M.J. McDermott’s youTube video about the sad state of basic math education in America. You can visit the video here, or you can simply scroll down to the next entry here in the Math Mojo Chronicles, where it is embedded.

It seems like M.J. McDermott has unleashed a firestorm that need to be unleashed. She’s gotten almost 60,000 hits in one week on youTube for a video about math! Imagine that! Good work, M.J.!

I’ve commented on that video several times, mentioning that there is at least one much better algorithm than what is called the “standard.”

Not one of the hundreds of other people who commented on the video seems to be aware of this, which is strange, because most of the comments to M.J.s video were posted by obviously thoughtful people. And one man who is obviously a lot better at mathematics than I am even made a video-reply to M.J.s video - but still stuck in standard mode.

Here is a synopsis of my part of the discussion so far:

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First a tip of the hat to thethinkingmother blog, an interesting homeschool blog, where I found out about the video that is the subject of this post.

The title of this post is a little strong, but I want to make an important point.

No, I’m not going to rag on Al Gore.

This post is about an interesting and provocative post on youTube, by M.J. McDermott. Ms. McDermott is a meteorologist on a Seattle news station, and she is concerned about the miserable state of math education in this country.

She has done a very nice exposé of some mindless math books and programs that have wormed their way into many school systems.
When you watch the video (I’ve linked to it here) you may be tempted to agree with just about everything, and become “incensed” at the state of affairs.

Me, too.

But it is all too easy to shake our little fists in the air and want to “get back to the good old ways” of doing things. The good old way in this case is what Ms. McDermott calls “The Standard Algorithm.” And there lies the rub.

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… a kiss is but a kiss. But on the other hand, a number can be many things. And there are many ways to remember numbers.

In lesson 3 of “Eating Math For Breakfast” you’ll learn a very basic but effective way to memorize a string of digits in order to do more math mentally.

Eventually Math Mojo will incorporate more mnemonic (memory) techniques into the website, but for now, this method will do. Mnemonics is a very powerful tool for magicians and is vastly underutilized in our education system.

In case you didn’t know, Math Mojo is part of Magic and Learning, a company that uses methods of magicians to teach thinking skills.

Today I have to start working on the “Math Mojo Monthly - Comes out quartly mostly” newsletter, to let subscribers know that the Chronicles have been reincarnated, and that these “Eating Math for Breakfast” lessons are available. .

I hope you have been trying out the lessons. They will become more fun to do in the near future, as I am adding a weirdness-factor to them as we go along.

(What the heck could that mean?)

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What makes us human? Opposable thumbs, memory? I think it’s the ability to determine to change, change, and be aware of the change.

Willingness to change is more important than the material, often.
It must be a big change.

I came up with the Idea of making an easily useable, understandable podcast that anyone from third-grade-level on should be able to understand, that will help them get better at basic math, so they can “eat it for breakfast.” There will be one lesson for each weekday.

These are very simple lessons, but it’s important to remember that simple does not mean easy. You will have to actively learn, and do the simple exercises in the lessons.

This first series of podcast lessons is meant to be the next step of learning how to turbo-charge your basic multiplication skills once you already know how to multiply one-digit numbers (like 6 x 7) using mental- and speed-math.

The first step is to make sure you know those one-digit multiplications “in your bones.” I feel the best way to lear them is with “Numbers Juggling - Times Without the Tables.”

These lessons are perfect for anyone who wants to learn how to multiply large numbers, like 7,693, times one-digit numbers, like 8, in their head, without pencil, paper, or heaven forbid, a calculator.

The lessons are free (for the time being) and you can find out more about them by clicking on the link on the left, entitled “Eating Math for Breakfast - Info., or you can click here.

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