I got to share this. I came across this story on a famous mathematician, Gauss. To make long story short, when he was very young the teacher asked the class this question:
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 9 + 10 = ?
Young Gauss came up in a flash and replied 55. The teacher wondered how he got it so fast. And was even more surprised when she knew how he got it. He found the "normal method" too slow and therefore came up with the following strategy:
1 + 10 = 11
2 + 9 = 11
3 + 8 = 11
4 + 7 = 11
5 + 6 = 11
5 x 11= 55
There were so many other strategies discussed in a book entitled "Productive Thinking" which I stumbled upon accidentally. I personally prefer anything in the world to mathematics. I struggled to cope with that subject in school. But just reading a chapter out of this very old book intrigued me.
Would kids who has no interest in maths like me learn and enjoy it better when they are allowed to come up with their own methods to solve the maths problems? The book also had so many other approaches to ordinary mathematics problems like algebra, area of parallelogram and so on. It looks at methods that diverts away from just applying the formulas and practising over and over again to remember to an exploration outlook. And also how this leads to a better and a creative problem solver later in life.
I don't think its too late for me to pick up 1 or 2 stuff about mathematics right? Might come in handy so I might pick up that book again after my exams.
