Yes, yes, you have read it right. It is that person who has taken endless pains to teach mathematics to countless generation of Bengali students over the ages.
While I was waiting for Arnab to get done with his haircut, I was flipping through "Parenting" magazine. Where I found that one lady has given tips to parents on how to guide their kids through daily homework, including maths problems. It was all about raising kids (especially girls) with an interest in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) majors. The solutions made me drop my jaw! 10 minutes of homework for someone in grade one and 10 minutes more every year?? I once looked at a Mathnasium advertisement on what school kids from grade 1 to 5 are supposed to achieve at Mathematics. That also drove me crazy! It looks like we are pros at Mathematics... the reason? K.C. Nag!
In the society I grew up, if you were good at science subjects, you were automatically considered a good student. While I definitely don't agree with this, I should admit that this pressure makes students consider mathematics with respect and as a result spend a lot of time in learning and practicing that.
Even though in my school days I would not consider my math scores good (as I was prone to silly mistakes and a + and - might get interchanged in my sums, an x might lose the power of 2 at any random time) but I would say that being analytic by nature, I used to like solving arithmetic and geometry problems. Algebra looked too boring to me and I didn't ever get the hang of trigonometry after we stopped calculating heights and distances. Calculus was taught in kind of a hurry and I need to spend some time on that now to learn it thoroughly. But Geometry has never ceased to awe me. The visual clues with the challenge of finding a solution was a great experience in my early teen life.
K.C. Nag wrote a book called "Modern Mathematics" to which I was introduced in class (grade) 5. What did it contain? Pages and pages of problems on - profit and loss, time and work, time and distance, ratio proportion, revolution of wheels and what not! Some of these have become immortal like the famous problem of a tank with 2 or 3 three taps to fill it (each would take a different time to fill it all alone) and a hole through which water leaks. If all of these are in full function, how long would it take the tank to fill? Another funny one was if it takes 12 seconds for a clock to strike 12, how long would it take to strike 5? (Not 5 seconds). There was one about a monkey trying to climb up a slippery pole. Every second, he climbs some distance but slips down a little. How long would it take him to climb to the top? (My aunt, not at all good at these, came up with a solution of 2.5 monkeys. No one knows how she managed to turn the unit of time into a "monkey".) Even more interesting were the time and distance problems with famous calculations for time taken by a train to cross a pole or to cross a platform. Then there was ratio and proportion where water was added to milk or amalgamated metals formed out of weird proportions. Learning to measure time and calculate conversions in the metric system (it was EASY in the metric system. I find the old English style HORRIBLE.)
Through the years till the end of school, I would practice these problem solving everyday (especially for a couple hours after lunch as that was the tradition in Bengali homes). Later I opted for an additional paper of Mathematics so I had to work even harder. I wouldn't say that I realized the value then, but now when I look back I understand what this can do. It has given me a confidence that things can be solved scientifically. Made me understand that science is always true (2+2 will add up to 4, everywhere, all the time). Opened a world of numbers in front of me which is really very fascinating (like pi. Isn't that awesome?) and has sharpened my analytic skills if not anything else. It is not for nothing that people with strong background in mathematics tend to become better software developers. They think and solve... that's it!
While I was waiting for Arnab to get done with his haircut, I was flipping through "Parenting" magazine. Where I found that one lady has given tips to parents on how to guide their kids through daily homework, including maths problems. It was all about raising kids (especially girls) with an interest in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) majors. The solutions made me drop my jaw! 10 minutes of homework for someone in grade one and 10 minutes more every year?? I once looked at a Mathnasium advertisement on what school kids from grade 1 to 5 are supposed to achieve at Mathematics. That also drove me crazy! It looks like we are pros at Mathematics... the reason? K.C. Nag!
In the society I grew up, if you were good at science subjects, you were automatically considered a good student. While I definitely don't agree with this, I should admit that this pressure makes students consider mathematics with respect and as a result spend a lot of time in learning and practicing that.
Even though in my school days I would not consider my math scores good (as I was prone to silly mistakes and a + and - might get interchanged in my sums, an x might lose the power of 2 at any random time) but I would say that being analytic by nature, I used to like solving arithmetic and geometry problems. Algebra looked too boring to me and I didn't ever get the hang of trigonometry after we stopped calculating heights and distances. Calculus was taught in kind of a hurry and I need to spend some time on that now to learn it thoroughly. But Geometry has never ceased to awe me. The visual clues with the challenge of finding a solution was a great experience in my early teen life.
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| Where K. C. Nag used to teach |
Through the years till the end of school, I would practice these problem solving everyday (especially for a couple hours after lunch as that was the tradition in Bengali homes). Later I opted for an additional paper of Mathematics so I had to work even harder. I wouldn't say that I realized the value then, but now when I look back I understand what this can do. It has given me a confidence that things can be solved scientifically. Made me understand that science is always true (2+2 will add up to 4, everywhere, all the time). Opened a world of numbers in front of me which is really very fascinating (like pi. Isn't that awesome?) and has sharpened my analytic skills if not anything else. It is not for nothing that people with strong background in mathematics tend to become better software developers. They think and solve... that's it!
7 comments:
K.C.Nag beche thakle onek ashirbad korten - satyi onko tomar kaje legechhe bole. bhagnaosher bador ta actually lila mojumdar er. amar didir chhilo time and work jatio kichhur uttar "ek purno eker tin manush"!
maths byaparta ke chirokal i bhoy bhokti kore bhalobeshechhi.. oi dupur bela radio chaliye onko korte bhalo lagto kintu onko porikhhar agei maxm bhoy korto.. reason otai, 2+2 r ans 4 chhara ar onyo upay nei. '+'er function na janle otake gul tappi diye khanikta '-' khanikta 'x' diye manage dewa jay na. proti alternate line e desh bhromon swasthyer pokhhe otishoy dorkari likheo chalano jay na.. :D
oi to 2+2=4 bolei to joto kando! bhaloi hok ar kharapi hok :) Programming tao ekkebare oi jinish. Computer ke maro ar kato, jotokhon na sob error thik hobe, code cholbe na...ba cholleo tomar ichhe moto answer debe na, kaj korbe na! Tai to eto ghotala! Kintu bhalo byapar ta holo, thik likhle thik cholbe, 2 bar bhabte hobe na ek jinish niye :)
ten minutes of maths practice every day sounds a bit vague.. and then ten more minutes every year?...why not a certain number of sums everyday?
Tua, not 10 minutes of maths practice. It's 10 mins of study as a whole :) And now these people are having TV programs analyzing why the students are not doing well compared to the students of Europe and all...
You really have an awesome blog. You doing great and I really love it. Thanks for posting. God bless.
Zea
www.imarksweb.org
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