A tribute to Mum - Happy Mother Day

There are many ways to improve Maths and English.


Let me share through a story of how my foundation for Maths was created.

It all started with a passionate mum who was concerned with her daughter's well being in school. Being a KS (Kiasu – i.e. not wanting to fall behind attitude) mum, she would ask around for her friends' advice on how to ensure that the grades are all within the 90+ range.

I guess this strikes a familiar chord with many parents out there? In fact, I would be doing that too as my child approaches 4, or 5 in a few years time.

However, just to stay where my original purpose was: A good foundation in Mathematics starts at P1. Not at P5 and P6 where new concepts are being taught, and it's quite late to start those foundation all over again.

And when I refer to foundation, I am saying about the basics 4 operators. It took me years to master these 4 operators (mentally). Yes, I mean mentally. Not using your fingers and/or toes, but utilitising the capacity of your human brain.

Do you know when a human being dies, the percentage of the human brain being used is usually less than 1%? Our brain just work in an amazing manner.

To be quick in thinking, you simply need to start doing and learning more Maths sums EVERYDAY.

Yes, I may be extreme in my thinking, but that was how I got started.

Everyday, without fail, when I was out shopping with my mum, she always test me on Maths. (e.g. she would bring out the multiplication tables and test me as and when there are some slag time. On the bus, she would test me with some sums? If I got it wrong, or I used more than 10 seconds to solve the sum, she would tell me the answer. But more importantly, it's the technique she would share with me on how to get the multiplication sum correctly.

If that is her way of showing love, well, that was how I was “trained” in Maths. And subsequently, my younger brother is also trained in the similar manner.

Only that, I had progressed up onto another level. This time round, while doing groceries shopping, I was tasked to calculate which bottle's size would make a better deal. Let me illustrate an example. A 250 ml of milk costs $0.75(or 75 cents) in the NTUC. The larger version which is 1000 ml (or 1 litre) would cost $2.85. So, given the options, which one is a better deal? The challenge was not only to solve this sum, but to solve it within half a minute. That was my challenge. I used to calculate “exactly” the cost and try to inform my mum the calculation.

Later, I realised it was very time consuming as there were many 5 cents or worse, it could end up with 3 or 4 cents. How to do multiplication for hundreds times 4? That was something not taught to me, especially when I was only 7 years old. In fact, chronologically, I was only 6 years when I started my P1 education. Hence, my mum was very worried. She was afraid that I was 1 year behind all others. Well, she hid that fact well. Luckily, I was quite 'bright' after her intensive training.

The tip of calculation fast (in that above scenario) was through estimation. Unless you have memorised 75 x 4 = 300, and 300 – 285 = 15 cents discount, there is no way you would have known the difference in split seconds. That took me a hard way of knowing. (and without any proper training for those Xin Suan or Zhu Suan). By the way, I came from a not-well-to-do family.

However, I prospered under both my mum and dad's tutelage. Dad would pepped me on story telling. If anything, I was geared and prepared for story telling since P1. All through P1 to P6, I was always involved in story telling competitions. (not a story a day, but a competition which is quite stressed as I had to prepare my story and memorise it before hand. And those expressions and the correct way of saying it.

Oooooh, those days could be a real torture. I hated English story telling competition as I was communicating in Chinese with my parents at home. I love reading those stories, but reciting and reading out aloud is another thing altogether.

Anyway, back to the main topic. To be good in Mathematics or (anything else), you need the interest (it would be better if you have the passion). It is only through passion that can last you through the journey.

I do not know HOW you can find that passion. For me, Maths is my passion. I used to be crazy about Maths. Did you know, whenever I got less than 100 for my Maths in P1 and P2, I would be quite upset. Well, my average scores were 96%, but somehow that was not good enough.

As I move up to P3, and P4, I average from 90 to 69. There were a lot of adjustments as I was introduced into What is x? And using x to solve the problem. Yeah, I was 10 when I was told of this strange foreign concept....

Just to be fair, I had my share of being lazy, and getting as low as 67 for my final year of Maths paper in P5. However, during that year, I was heavily involved in band. I was training everyday for at least 3 hours. The band was disbanded when I was in P5. There were no new blood to take over the group. I was very sad during that period of time. I remembered the last time we had a performance was Speech Day (the final day of school). As usual, my band was involved, and after the final last performance, the whole bunch of us were feeling sad.

Well, the sentimental me would cry. I cannot remember if I did, but anyway, I recalled my Mum's scoldings. Those were real scoldings and a wake-up call from her. You see, I had YOY (Year-on-year reduction of 10 percentage points in my studies.) As at P5 final year, I was scoring 67% for my overall. For first time in history, I was placed in the 12th position in that entire class.

There were only 30 of us. But I have never ever scored >10th position, and this is not a joke. No matter how hard I played, I always ensure I am placed in the top 10 position. (or else, my mum would have my head on this. Not literally but figuratively.) She would start her constant nag, and the consequences of me not studying hard, and my “future”.

At the end of P5, I went to my cousin's place for tuition. I recalled my mum's paid her $100 every month. Well, instead of studying, I was playing. I would play on her keyboard. I was seriously into music, as I would transpose music from the recorder / from the band's pieces or whatever music pieces I could lay on, and self-taught myself on the keyboard. This can go on for a few hours. (not doing assesment on the assessment books where I was supposed to be). I was simply distracted, and simply love to learn things through Music. Please do remember that I was crazy about band, and I was quite sad about the disbandment of band in P5.

I had another wake-up call from my cousin. She could not control or manage me. And she issued me with a final warning. If I had continued the way I led, I would be an “nobody”. I know that parents nowadays may issue threats about being a road-sweeper. Well, you see, it came from a cousin who adores me as if I were her real sister, and she was really mad when she made those comments.

You see, I was her apple of her eyes (among all the young cousins she had), I was always the favourite. And I felt indignant when she said those things. I felt that I should never deserve the insult at all. Not at all.

Well, I guessed I must have been very fortunate. I came to learn of this tutor through my classmates' recommendation. 3 times a week, I went over to her place to learn Maths and English grammar. Science was self-taught, however, as my tutor was a graduate from Chinese school (Hua Choong), I was trained in Maths and Grammar as if it was a logical subject.

English grammar is nothing but just full of rules. Rules of what applies, and what does not apply. I seriously undertook that, I was given a challenge. That is to get into my dream school. However, that dream school was a GEP school for music. Under my love for my P5 teacher, she came from that girls' school. I was determined to get into that school. Just to show and prove that I could do it.

Yeah. Those who know me, I can be very persistent, stubborn in my ways. However, if you do not possess these qualities, how can you succeed in setting out the goals that you established. My goal was to get at least 240 for PSLE. Given my P5 results, I was scoring 217. That was at least another 10 percent points. YOY. It was not easy. If you read my earlier essay, you had realised, studying would get harder and harder. There were now more new concepts and stuff you need to learn.

Usually, students struggled with P6 because of more concepts, and trying to cope with whatever had been taught previously.

Luckily for me, during my Nov and Dec holidays (those 6 weeks of holidays), other people were playing non-stop. For me, it was my new journey of studying. I had never imagined myself studying non-stop during my school holidays. It was like 5 – 8 hours every weekday. I didn't really calculate the amount of time I had to spend. All I knew was

1)Go to popular bookshop, pick out the toughest Maths assessment book
2)Complete it. No questions asked.

Taking a deep breathe, that was a real challenge. My tutor, in fact, subsequently used my book for her teaching as she felt that it was a very good book. Today, this book has branched off into Maths Olympiad (in 3 series).

I cannot imagine myself doing Maths for at least 3 to 5 hours everyday. You see, I keep repeating. It has got to be passion, and the desire that I want to score an A star. Nothing less than an A star which kept me going.

There was the head prefect who was my neighbour. We motivated each other, as we would have each other for accompany we attended tuition together, and having snacks at Mountbatten House. The shop had closed when I was in Sec 1.

I just had that competitive streak. When this friend completed 1 exercise book on Maths, (which is 120 pages of that exercise book), I need to do better than her. Please do not ask me why. I just knew I had to be more hardworking, more diligent and asking questions in school at P6.

The journey at P6 was horrendous. I had a very good teacher who was very efficient in marking. She was also very efficient in teaching new concepts in Maths. Well, good for me, as my efforts in P5 school end holidays shown, and I was back into the 90% percentile. In fact, I always ask myself: Why didn't I get 100. It was no longer just “Oh, I got 90% only.” It was more like “Eh, why did I get 96 instead of 100?”

I always do a reflection of what went wrong. That is why, I asked my students to do a thorough self-reflection of themselves. It is through reflection that one learns what went wrong. You never know what is wrong. Till you figure and make the connections yourself. Not by others telling you what is right or wrong. As teachers, we always like to preach what is right and or wrong. However, this is this inner voice. The voice of conscience and logic which we need to develop (even if we are very young). And this has to be set right from the beginning. A good student exhibits not only good results, but there are core values which comes along with it.

Being humble.

Yes, you need to be humble even if you are very good. Do not brag about yourself, or your results as there will always be someone better than you. Yeah, I usually act stupid in front of others. However, that is to learn from others. And reinforcing whatever have been learned. I have this serious habit of not being a good listener. Well, to be successful in life, you need to learn how to listen.

Even in studying, you do not HEAR. As far as you can, you should learn how to listen. Listening is not only about the words that have been spoken out, but the body language, the tonality of how the speech has been delivered, and you deciphered it (in your brain, what is this person doing, why is she/he saying such a thing? What is the purpose? What can I learn out from it? Is this something, a good behaviour I should emulate, or something I should take note and NEVER ever copy this bad behaviour.) Sometimes, exposure is good so that you can differentiate for yourself what is bad, what is wrong, what is right or wrong?

There is no real correct or wrong. However, there is a set of internal principles or values which have been taught to us or inculcated since young.

I came from a neighbourhood school. There were the students who repeated P6 for 3 years; they were 15, and swearing was something very common. I learned that I should never use those words. (Although I have full awareness and understanding of those words in Hokkien). Yeah, I grew up with my grandparents who spoke only Hokkien to me, and we stayed in a 1-room rental flat along with my mum, younger brother, my grandparents and my uncle. It was a crampy place for 6 persons.

But we survived.

There is no moral of this story. Morals should be derived from the readers. Please go and decide for yourself what exactly are the morals that have been said within the stories, and what are the good things we should all learn from this.

To sum all up, if you want to learn about Maths and English, you MUST be passsionate about these 2 subjects.

How to develop the passion? Include them in your every day life. Not buy doing and redoing assessment books.

It's about learning through ALL senses, even when you are out of your books. I always enjoy a trip to NTUC, as there is where I practise my Maths. Yeah, the mental Maths I had to do, and get the rebates for NTUC members. 4% as a member, and linkpoints for a minimum purchase of $20. Also, comparing the prices of food which have been imbued inside my brain. Somehow, it's there. It is there for all of us,
we just need to connect the dots, and start this journey ourselves.

Cheers~

Happy Mother's Day for all mothers. I love my mum. I may squabble with her; and there are usually daily squabbles, but I love her for who she is. :)

The tribute for Mother's Day: I just want to thank her for being around with me. She has been my source of light when there is darkness, and a source of inspiration for me whenever I am not thinking right.

Well, mothers do age. So, please start cherishing your Mums and Dads. Alright, am signing out and stopping this post.

Happy Mother's Day!