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Universal Education How I Think It Can Be Achieved - John Nicholson - 11-05-2006
UNIVERSAL EDUCATION
HOW I BELIEVE IT CAN BE ACHIEVED
Up to the present I have made no real effort to sell my educational resources, my main task has been to identify what is vital about education, although I have designed and redesigned my Abacus One model.(trying to perfect it) I have really made no serious attempt to sell it, but massive atempts to introduce the concept, until the present time.
(Hopefully Abacus One made in China will be perfect and available at low cost)
My low case reading cards are clearly identifiable the children themselves are able to explain to their parents, just how to use the cards effectively, and the parents whether they like it or not, are unable to miss the instructions on the back of the cards and further instructions on the layout of the alphabet.
Producing these cards in this manner makes available to parents and primary schools, an extremely simple and totally essential reading resource, the layout is printed in black.(can be photocopied) the cards are in four colors with the instructions in black on the back of every card each pack contains two letters of each letter of the alphabet. Such a useful and essential resource is clearly understood by both primary teachers and parents.
Together with the abacus, they provide an essential starting point, in what I consider to be essential basic skills when learning to read count and think.
The personal ability of every child in reading and mathematics, is the limiting factor within both the speed and depth of every child's education.
Without the ability to read and understand mathematics concepts as they arise throughout the child’s life, at the appropriate time, their education will be impaired. It is my considered opinion that every healthy child can develop perfect reading and mathematic ability, allowing the child to work independently but with supervision by the time they are seven years old, some children will be capable of independent work at a younger age, so much the better for those individual children, once a child has develop perfect reading and basic mathematics ability, motivation and opportunity play far the biggest part within their continuing education, with some children personal motivation, within a Western world setting, is most likely to be sufficient, but within the Third World, where motivation is most likely to be at its strongest, we have to provide opportunity, with computers radios televisions books and magazines available, even without schoolteachers or what we consider to be normal school buildings, to provide a complete primary, secondary and university education. This can be provided, simply by volunteer students working in their gap year's from the Western world, the interrelationship and understanding of each other's circumstances, will be an effective substitute for the Western world resources, children from the Third World can be usefully found employment, both within agriculture and construction, alongside receiving both practical and theoretical instruction within all subjects.
In the final analysis of education, personal motivation is inevitably the limiting factor.
By failing to teach reading and mathematics both effectively and universally we are denying millions of children of ever achieving their full potential, the kinaesthetic and multi sensory ability of an abacus has led me to consider the possibilities of education and the realization that every aspect of human understanding, whether professional, mechanical, agricultural or philosophical, are within the grasp, of any child that has the ability to read broadly, and calculate effectively and logically, after seven years of age I consider motivation to be the only limiting factor, providing those of us, who have foresight and ability, are willing to work towards a better world.
The first effective steps, has got to be remodeling primary school education within the Western world.
I am intending to write my considered observations directly under the headings associated with the work of Howard Gardener, in order that you may consider the relevance of what I suggest, alongside broadly identifiable human mental abilities.
Seven Intelligences
Verbal/Linguistic
This intelligence, which is related to words and language--written and spoken--dominates most Western educational systems.
Conversation in the form of inquiry and explanation best demonstrates the human ability to teach and learn, without words we can make no inquiry, without words we can give no effective explanation, a child having taught itself to speak by copying, the sound of its natural language and identifying for itself the meaning and manner of that language is readily able to speak with both children and adults, apart from repetitious chanting ( rhythmic mental ability) or the concept from a well told story. The effective memory ability, of a four or five-year-old child will be seriously underused without a specifically identifiable purpose, whole class teaching, will we be an essential part of every school day, but when we consider the vast abilities of normal intelligence to understand instantly many vital pieces of information whole class teaching itself, will be reduced to the bare essentials, specifically utilised for chanting exercises, where rhythmic memory is part of what needs to be learnt, which when learned effectively becomes a part of the instant individual subconscious memory.
In order to best utilise our verbal intelligence, group working, and effective one-to-one explanation holds out our best opportunity to develop the childs vocally associated intelligence.
We shall never remodel primary education, without large doses of trial and error, unless we search out and explore the possibilities which we considered to be waiting to be exploited, from brain research and consideration, we have little hope of effectively building a primary school model for the Third World, so therefore obviously trial and error, alongside effective evaluation, are vital.
My own experience in trying to introduce the abacus into English Primary Schools,
clearly illustrates that only intervention at the highest political level, will ever be effective in introducing change within primary schools, the first thing that needs to be done, is to identify those schools already establishing top-quality education, it is to those schools that we must look for effective trailing, if a concept works well with one child, we must discover whether it works equally as well with many children, the abacus does this, I feel that virtually every primary school teacher accepts the importance of synthetic phonics within the United Kingdom, effective the reception class teachers have never abandoned phonics, simply by the use of rhythmic chanting of the alphabet in the alphabet sound and ensuring that every letter of the alphabet can be recognized with every letter and sound associated together our children are ready to be taught phonetically,
Logical/Mathematical Intelligence
Often called "scientific thinking," this intelligence deals with inductive and deductive thinking/reasoning, numbers and the recognition of abstract patterns.
The recognition of any specific number in itself is very quickly no more difficult then the recognition and understanding of any other word, if elementary arithmetic is taught properly the processing of numbers is very straightforward, but the processing and relationship between any two numbers creating an answer which is simply understood, utilises a far greater part of the working brain.
The abacus illustrates the working principles of mathematics, initially without any mental calculation, once the principle of counting to add or subtract, counting numbers that lead to multiplying, illustrates the concept of multiplication, utilising wrote learning in the form of multiplication chanting, once considered not to be a benefit is exactly the opposite, using the abacus to physically demonstrate answers is of great benefit, but the value of multiplication instantly within a mental form, can never be overstated within mental arithmetic, with the benefit of calculators we can check complicated sums for perfect accuracy, but using a calculator to learn the basic mathematics, is far more difficult then watching the process unfold on an abacus, the abacus illustrates perfectly the decimal system, it allows a very young child quickly to understand the layout of arithmetic, abacus one develops instant appreciation of written numbers, the form of written numbers translate easily into numeric symbols, developing smooth mental ability within the mathematics is impossible without the use of language, aided by visual memory and subconscious memory, spatial reorganisation takes place on an abacus embedding itself deep into the subconscious memory.
The process of numbers that the child readily understands develops not only the working brain associated with numbers, it develops the mental capacity within reading and understanding what is being read, any child having been taught mathematics on an abacus develops a mental mentality where it will be never left behind at whatever level of complication mathematics is undertaken.
I should like to include here the opinion of my friend Winston Haxton who consistently utilised mathematics in his daily work, who has also encountered students that have taken up physics without a proficient knowledge of mathematics, entering university without competent mathmatics can be only compaired to entering a marathon race with a broken leg where science is concerned.
Universal Education How I Think It Can Be Achieved - John Nicholson - 11-05-2006
Visual/Spatial Intelligence
This intelligence, which relies on the sense of sight and being able to visualize an object, includes the ability to create internal mental images/pictures.
Visual spatial intelligence is extremely natural, and I would imagine that most animals possess high degrees of visual and spatial intelligence purely in order to compensate for lack of verbal communications, we as humans however utilise this natural mental ability consistently within explanation and enquiry, it is by visual and spatial intelligence, that every human child develops a deep understanding of words within its use of language, language itself is meaningless without comon understanding among those taking part in conversation, or at any other form of communication, we utalize visual and spatial intelligence to such a large extent that we are virtually unaware of it, revisiting the mental images provides the human being with the ability of instant recall which in itself leads to the instantaneous use of words and their instant understanding.
The development of imagery within the use of language is so much a part and parcel of it, that very few of us can comprehend eternal darkness, thankfully the human brain is so well organized, that compensatory spatial understanding, can be developed in those of us who are born blind. This illustration when deeply considered must than provide us with one of the best examples within compensatory intelligence development we are ever likely to have.
Body/Kinesthetic Intelligence
This intelligence is related to physical movement and the knowing/wisdom of the body, including the brain's motor cortex, which controls bodily motion.
Kinaesthetic intelligence is virtually all subconscious, unless we are lame we are virtually unaware of how we walk or run, ninty per cent of our kinaesthetic intelligence develops naturally, completely without any conscious awareness, once we needed to develop our bodily skills through physical training conscious body movement and mind Concious skills are converted by practice and repetition into unconscious movement and physical ability which is dependant purely on, a combination of a truly inherited ability, alongside precise abilities created from intensive training, for instance playing a musical instrument is a combination of extended kinaesthetic intelligence, combined with musical and rhythmic intelligence resulting in longterm unconscious ability, the kinaesthetic training within any mental and motorfunction of the body, efficiently carried out results in automatic long-term memory.
Utilisation of kinaesthetic principles within learning mathematics on an abacus results in an indelible mental memory, just as it does with any other combination of physical and mental process as we learn to write we are in fact, utilising our subconscious kinaesthetic perfect memory, a kinaesthetic memory thankfully, which will remain with us throughout our lives.
Musical/Rhythmic Intelligence
This intelligence is based on the recognition of tonal patterns, sounds, and on a sensitivity to rhythm and beats.
Music and rhythmic intelligence, are without any doubt whatsoever the most vital assistance to verbal memory, if the Chinese language can be taught by verbal chanting, and the Koran memorised by verbal chanting, we will need to develop verbal chanting far beyond the useful part it plays within learning the 36 symbols that are necessary to understand the English language and the mathematic symbols.
Music is as much a part of language as language itself, natural rhythm will always be a part of our language, it is by natural rhythm that precise memory is achieved in nursery rhymes and songs, as priorities change within education it is most likely that we needed to develop songs and nursery rhymes that encase difficult and essential precisely formatted ideas. Purely because we are so concerned with language we are far more aware of the value in rhythm then we are in the unconscious value of image in action. Words instantly trigger image in action, image in action in itself, does not necessarily create words, it will of necessity and create further images that are naturally a part of consideration of ideas in question.
Without rhythm and without music and the kinaesthetic development of the mind, large parts of effective memory would most likely fail to be developed.
Interpersonal Intelligence
This intelligence operates primarily through person-to person relationships and communication.
Interpersonal intelligence is most obviously something which cannot be taught, we can teach children good manners, which will assist interpersonal intelligence, we can teach them how to behave while they are with other people, but the real depth of interpersonal relationships cannot be experienced without practical experience. What does practical experience mean? Obviously it means mixing with many other people, the days when children are told to be quite are long past, children quickly understand the moments within schools where they need to be quite, primary schools especially need to be places where children are exposed to all the children within the schools they are attending, regular teaching and learning sessions need to be set up in order to utilise our natural abilities within teaching and learning, I never tire of repeating the three important things within education.
SHOWING DOING KNOWING
Obviously there is very rarely anywhere else as safe as he primary school where children can mix with other people, teachers classroom assistants and volunteered parents are all available and all available with the best of intentions in order to help children of all ages to understand the work they are doing, and intereaction would be a normal part of a modern primary school, what would not been part of a modern primary school at the moment would be regular teaching interaction between pupils and all ages and sexes, watch a group of children around the computer one child will naturally take the lead, the others when fire questions at them.
We simply have to reorganise our schools to take advantage of this phenomena, immediately any one of us is in possession of knowledge, that others do not possess we have the ability to give explanation and demonstration. Children naturally work well together interpersonal relationships nead to be developed and understood naturally, the more people and the more variation within those people that a child makes naturally the more the child is able to develop its own intuitive manner and perception of the people it is meeting.
The child that has only one teacher during the day, that is continually told to keep quiet, that goes home to a small family, will have to leave school before they can develop any chance of a broader relationship with adults and other children, we simply have too reorganised our primary schools with the lessons we are continually learning about automatic instant understanding of the majority of subjects and situations which we come across within our human experience.
Universal Education How I Think It Can Be Achieved - John Nicholson - 11-05-2006
Intrapersonal Intelligence
This intelligence relates to inner states of being, self-reflection, metacognition (i.e., thinking about thinking) and awareness of spatial realities.
Naturally we all have intrapersonal intelligence, it is no matter how hard we work to develop our own brain and our own understanding, individually we are limited by our personal experience and the level of understanding and comprehension which we have developed within our own minds. Our personal knowledge is limited and the logic of this situation is that our individual views are limited. How tiresome it is to consider that with a lifetime of experience behind us, we are most unlikely to have little more than a bucket of experience within a sea of knowledge.
For the sake of our children and our children's children we have to speed up knowledge acquisition, and knowledge application, you may disagree with what I have written here but my own understanding of my own mind, Leads me to consider that I can understand and remember many things instantly, it leads me to consider that my own mind is like a three-dimensional map I naturally draw on every associated memory, whenever I write another sentence, or think another thought, at that moment I'm considering the words of Blake how can we describe an idea without the use of precise words.
The human brain is magnificent, everything that humanity has achieved on earth springs from within it, everything which we will achieve in the future, comes directly from the multiplicity of thinking we are capable of, it is pointless to consider the human brain without considering the potential of it. We are entirely wasting our children's lives by sitting them down in a classroom and boring them to death.
The human brain works to quickly and in to complicated a manner to effectively learn things without doing things, hopefully my explanations of the human brain, have improved by giving my writing sufficient airing.
The concept primary school, has to be a dynamic place, a place where children cannot wait to enter each morning, the breadth of what we show has to be practical, it has to be relevant, children need to be taught how to prepare their own food, and even if they do not know how grow it, they should visit farms and market gardens they should be given the best possible instruction as to how food is grown, they should be taught how to respect food and how to live without wasting food.
All primary schools should focus attention on brain development, without becoming perfect within reading and mathematics at the highest level considering their age, we are failing to develop the possibilities of their brains, instant understanding of many things, can only correctly come about by consideration of many things, we have to rearrange our school programs, every child needs to be taught to type in primary school, every child needs to be taught to play the piano in primary schools, every child needs to be taught to dance with primary schools, every child needs to be taught how to debate, every child needs to take regular parts within plays illustrating concepts, all children need to know how to draw and paint, all children benefit from learning a second language, and obviously the younger they start, the better at it they are, and so it is with everything we do.
I am bringing my observations to an end, with two stories, I spent the weekend with two of my daughters, taking photographs of my Granddaughter using my reading cards, it was nine months since I had first shown her how to use them her mother and father had continued with these lessons, her ability to recognise the letters and associate them with small worlds was amazing, but that was not the most amazing part of her memory she is now three years six months old, she told me that the day that I had first shown her how to use the cards, that we had walked down to the church together, with her dog and on that day her mother's sister was working with a friend from the village practicing theatrical makeup she also remember the friends name Sarah Doller.
Watching television is almost an addiction for me, I consider it to be the only time i can take a rest, I was just rereading most of this last part concerning educational change, looking at what I have written about music and rhythm, on the news program children were being interviewed about taking part within a play, it was a musical play and they made the Comment, that once they heard the music, they were able to remember the words, I could find no better confirmation of my perception concerning music and rhythm within teaching.
Universal Education How I Think It Can Be Achieved - John Nicholson - 06-06-2006
The tree of knowledge.
This is an excellent title for what I am about to write, in order to give explanation as to how I see myself and other people learning and remembering the important things throughout our lives.
The word that best expresses, and gives best explanation, for the way that I see the brain working, is imagery.
Imagery.
The human brain uses imagery at the speed of light to create meaning, every separate word we use creates imagery, every word we use is within itself an idea, and with every sentence we use imagery, it is the tool we use to establish meaning.
My own limited study of the human brain, utilises the imagery of the tree, for me to visualise a brain neuron, I compare its similarity with that of a tree, I visualise a massive root system and a tall tree with many branches and subbranches covered with leaves, the roots and branches of the tree, interconnect with multitudes of information sources, the tree grows ever bigger, the leaves of the tree ever more profuse, for my visualization, I see one tree of knowledge, a tree beyond earthly dimensions, a tree that is constantly growing, adding information about every conceivable and unconceivable aspect of our universe.
My visualisation suggests to me, that no individual human being, nor all the combinations of humans who inhabit the earth, we'll ever embrace the tree of knowledge, looking at the storage of knowledge, and the complexity of information, visualization, imagination and image in action, requires use of triggers, words are triggers, words trigger visualisation within the human brain, whether they are provided by reading or hearing or thought, they have the same effect, that is the creation of visualization, the creation of a meaning, within the multitudes of words, and the infinity of combinations in which they are used, combined with the difference within human understanding, words alone are imperfect, but for a broad understanding of any matter, they are our best tool, and most often our only tool.
At the present time I am reading for the third time a book called
“ how brains make up their mindsâ€
it is written by a professor of brain science in the graduate school at the University of California Berkeley,
Walter J Freeman makes a clearer understanding of human behaviour, here is his best explanation of choice.
“ every choice we make is deeply personal, arising in the entire past experience within each of us ,not as a static collection of memories, but as a fabric of interlocked influences, desires, detestation and talents that constitute the meaning of everything we do. We all try constantly to clarify this flux and emphasize features that give the appearance of order and intelligibility to our turbulence, and we identify salient aspects as causes, determinants and a rationales. We use reason to search for what we believe are the meanings of the objects, events and actions within our lives. It is very important to us that we explain our perceptions and actions in this way, so we can learn what to change in ourselves, our behaviour, and the world around us, and attain our personal goals more effectively.â€
Effectively each of us, is the sum total of our personal experience in combination with the ideas we have assimilated and reasoned through both from reading and that personal experience, when we contemplate our individual tree of knowledge, our minds are able to conceive the connections that have to be made by the multitudes of branches of information that we have to consider, why do we have to consider so many branches of information? Simply whenever we make a choice, the choice is unlikely to be effectively made, without a firm grasp of associated information, the choices we have to make throughout our lives, range from inconsequential to matters which may affect the life and lives of our friends and associates, our choices have to be made in differing timescales, some choices can be considered for years, some choices have to be made in split-seconds, the visualisation we use to make that choice needs to be as complete and thorough as possible.
The more dependent our lives become on other people, the more unlikely we are to be able to understand the information and the conclusions of those people we are dependent on.
95% of people in the Western world have no understanding of essential matters concerning food production distribution and long-term supply of even the most basic foods.
95% of people would find it difficult to build and maintain their own homes, and 50% of us rely on processed food and ready-made meals.
A large percentage of us have no realization of the effective need for fresh vegetables and fruit in order to maintain our health.
Virtually there is no public awareness of the vital part that vaccination and vaccination research play in maintaining public health.
Collectively we are totally unaware of how fast we are using up world resources, collectively and individually we are unable to perceive any future where we would have to grow our own food and build our own homes.
The majority of the people within the world at the present time are still needing to grow their own food and build their own homes, world resources will not allow us to continue in the model Western world lifestyle, collectively we may not even be able to maintain the standard of living we already enjoy. Most certainly the majority of the world population that at present are suffering financial and physical hardship through inability to produce food and economic housing as part and parcel of integration with the Western world will be unlikely to continue with passive response to an ever-growing consumption from the Western world.
Universal Education How I Think It Can Be Achieved - John Nicholson - 06-06-2006
For the sake of a peaceful world future, we need to integrate the larger part of world Society within a sustainable world order, based on democracy, free exchange of technical and economic information, vast efforts have to be made communally to raise the standard of food production and an adequate home building alongside providing adequate health provision.
The very best technical educational resources needs to be made available to every child on earth, democracy and human welfare go hand-in-hand, provided that they are organised in an effective sustainable manner. For children that have adequate reading and mathematics ability further education sustained by their own interest and efforts will never be a problem.
Providing universal primary education is possible immediately providing that we utilize the universal abilities we have too both learn and teach from an early age.
The Bush School model of universal education, UNESCO PRIMARY, wall-to-wall, or one two one. Collectively we need to work through a sustainable model of primary education, my youngest daughter is 15 years old today, I began my research into education when she was only four years old, I have made little progress in establishing even the most simple ideas within education, along with my friend Winston Hagston (a professor of theoretical Physics) we have attempted to introduce the abacus to local schools, apart from individuals who have used the abacus privately we have made little inroad, I have written to numerous educational institutions giving explanation, of my research. My writing and my research is designed to produce the most effective human welfare provision possible, it should be made blatantly clear to every human being on earth, that effective primary education is not only necessary for every child on earth, it is the basic right of every child on earth.
How are we to provide that, it is not only My human duty, to consider this, it is yours. During 10 years research, I have learnt a great deal, during almost 66 years on the earth, my only official qualification is an NCA a National certificate in agriculture, I am writing this in my own garden next door to the college where I obtained my certificate.
The main thing that agricultural college taught me was that you can research anything, I developed my own farming business, I have travelled around every continent on earth, I have studied many types of agricultural production, my own business was destroyed by a weak bank and a voracious multinational, alongside my research into education,in the last 20 yearsI have assisted many farmers to retain and redevelop their business, I have spent years in and out of lawcourts trying to obtain justice for the needless destruction of my own business. Even as I sit here today my target for reforming mathematics education in primary schools around the world is the HSSBC bank the inheritor of the week Midland bank that destroyed by business. Their advertising claims that they are a World Bank and understand banking and finance in every country in the world, will it not be fitting for them to purchase and supply the abacus to every child that is born.
On the very first day of my physical working life, just 16 years old, on my father's farm, I was given the best advice that I have ever been given, by a man who left school at 11 years old, “ listen to everybody, you will never meet anyone who does not know some things that you can never learn,†and so began my practical education.
Somethings can be learned instantly, somethings can never be learnt, but there was a man who had left school at 11 years of age, but with proficient ability in reading and mathematics, in today's world he could have become an engineer or a brain surgeon, instant knowledge on a wide variety of subjects is available to us all, politics and wars are subjects that we can never avoid, we are all small players on a large field, we are all interdependent on the work of others for survival, there is a natural duty, to make available what we have learnt for the benefit of others, you may not like what I say, you may not agree with what I say, but at least you have read it.
At 12 years of age young adults have a great need to be involved in the practical process`s of life, sport will not always answer every child's problem here, as well as sport children need to become involved in the practical day-to-day working situations, where they can develop their skills, and the wider knowledge that is associated with ideas in different practical circumstances.
Just how much knowledge can any child can absorb by the time it is 12 years old, it depends entirely upon the circumstances of that child, the lifestyle and manner in which the child lives, the vast majority of the information the child possesses at 12 years of age is naturally assimilated through its family and school life, if we were to take a child that has never been to school, the child would be entirely dependent on learning from the world around it, within the Western world, we have swamped our children with information and entertainment, they naturally prefer the entertainment unlimited and unguided television is the order of the day
We as human beings, possessing a brain where imagery is so important take readily to television programs, the problems we have with children within the Western world is purely guiding them towards programs that contain hidden benefits alongside the child's natural desire to be entertained. With the availability of terrestrial television DVDs films and computers it is inevitable that visual teaching programs are vital to expanding awareness in all children whatever their circumstances maybe, the availability of personal computers both within the home and within the schools, has to some extent brought about natural training within reading, children are curious and with the Internet and personal computers there is a necessity to read in order to satisfy their curiosity.
The secondary and adult education was always available to those people who wished to read, and had good reading ability, it is with the provision of good reading ability and the development of proficient at mathematics that I am most concerned.
Children need to be taught proficient reading, the only way they will ever develop proficient reading, is to teach them first the value of reading for pleasure, between the ages where a child is able to read proficiently and 12 years of age, everything a child needs to be taught can be captured within pleasurable reading, although we can remember many infinitesimally small items naturally, it is within concepts that we store most information.
Cont
Universal Education How I Think It Can Be Achieved - John Nicholson - 06-06-2006
The visualisation that we use within natural memory comes mainly from concepts, the development of a child's brain is guaranteed with a child who reads broadly and deeply, only well-written books can stimulate reading for pleasure, only well-written books can contain the concepts necessary to encourage the child to research.
For general information we can rely on films DVDs tapes television, but in our efforts to stimulate the reading habit, we have to return to the story, the story is as old as man.
Our ability to visualise was developed alongside our speech development, both children and adults respond to the story, it is within the story that I am trying to explain my concepts within universal education, it is within the story that we can educate every healthy child, it is within the story that we can stimulate the thinking necessary, to develop a peaceful and resourceful world, it is within the story that we can develop our personal abilities, and the abilities and concepts of others.
Reading ability develops throughout our lives, the type of things we read wether for pleasure or profit develop our vocabulary and our understanding. Brain research enables us to understand that we have both conscious and subconscious abilities, our subconscious abilities need to be developed and they can only be developed proficiently by doing things, it is quite easy to understand how something is being done in a mental form, when we watch a tennis match we can easily see what the players are doing wrong, every human skill is dependant on the whole brain, and although reading is the simplest and easiest way we can develop our understanding, it does not provide the development of the subconscious brain that is necessary in the application of anything.
It is to practical mathematics that we must look to the development of large parts of the working brain, just as we are able to store large numbers of words for instantaneous use within language, we are able to store the mathematics concepts we use, as a major part of all our working lives, eventually we can all tell the time, eventually we all realise someone concept of distance, eventually we can all understand the concepts of money.
But why eventually anything.
Even when compared with our natural language, mathematics is easy, instead of 26 letter symbols and half a million words, we only need ten symbols, seven columns, and thirty words to take us to one million.
The most difficult thing we will ever have to do on our own is learn a language, and most of us can achieve this proficiently before we are four years old, and some of us considerably quicker than that.
Teaching mathematics is simple, using mathematics to develop the brain is vital, within research we have discovered that any child with reading difficulties quickly gained confidence and ability once their mathematical abilities have been developed, no child needs to do more than one hour a day learning or utilising practical mathematics, the regular working with mathematical problems will assist the child`s brain developement in order to sufficiently absorb the scientific geographical and historical information that are part and parcel of a good education.
Solving mathematical problems can be seen as the precursor to solving complicated intellectual problems utilising conscious and subconscious abilities in mathematics may be different in so much as there is usually only one answer in comparison with intellectual problems where evaluation of cause and effect have many interpretations.
For better or worse I see mathematics as being just as essential in brain development as I see words in the development of language. Neither thinking nor language can develop correctly without words and numbers the concepts of both are essential, within perception and explanation.
Universal Education How I Think It Can Be Achieved - John Nicholson - 09-06-2006
"AT first CAST was more like a clinic, diagnosing children’s learning problems and prescribing individualized solutions.Over time, however, the organization’s approach shifted 180 degrees, eventually settling around the strategy of Universal Design for Learning, which creates learning models and software that are adaptable to the varied situations of the students themselves."
WE NEED A UNIVERSAL DESIGN OF LEARNING FOR 5 TO 12 YEARS OF AGE THAT INCORPARATES THE VERY BEST IN TEACHING PRACTICE UTILISING THE CHILDS OWN ABILITIES TO BOTH LEARN AND TEACH
IMEADIATLY WE ACEPT THIS CONCEPT WE TURN A PRIMARY SCHOOL WITH FOUR HUNDRED CHIDREN AND TEN TEACHERS INTO A SCHOOL WITH
410 CHILDREN AND 410 TEACHERS
I ALREADY HAVE THE PROOF
http://abacusone.net/
Universal Education How I Think It Can Be Achieved - John Nicholson - 10-06-2006
CONTENT OR WHAT I BELIEVE WE SHOULD BE TAUGHT BETWEEN
FIVE AND TWELVE YEARS OF AGE
Last night I went to bed with the image of a Palestinian mother screaming in DISPAIR she had taken her children down to the beach, either a homemade Palestinian bomb or an Israeli naval shell killed her family in front of her, in today's world of handy cameras, someone on the beach had taken a shot of this perfectly innocent lady cradling her dead children, no doubt today we shall find who was responsible for this atrocity, indirectly we all are responsible for what happened to this lady and her family.
I am not a religious person, nor am I against any religions organisation whatsoever, I only see religion as another method of dividing one group of human beings from another group of human beings. I was brought up by a mother who had seen the results of two horrendous world wars, her belief was that only politicians should ever be allowed to fight, she was appalled by the millions of innocent lives that had been lost during two world wars. In just the same manner as I am appalled at our present world behaviour, I believe that we as human beings have a deep-seated necessity to feel that we belong within a group of human beings, to put it bluntly we are still tribal, for the sake of humanity for the sake of the children were killed yesterday, for the sake of the children and human beings that will be killed today, we have to alter our perception, the only way we shall ever alter our perception, is by universal education, the only way we shall ever achieve universal education, is by applying thousands and millions of brains to the method and mode of that education, so now you may understand why I return again and again to a familiar theme.
I have been reading and thinking about brain development, looking more closely at the world of Walter J. Freeman, who was kind enough to reply to me when I advised him that I utilised part of his work to give explanation to part of my own, simply printing in his name to the computer brought up the name of Walter Freeman, famous or infamous for his work in mental health, it would give explanation that Walter J. Freeman follows the work of a close relation as a neurosurgeon, don't we all work to some extent, work on the interests of our parents and our ancestors. Thinking of Walter J. Freeman, I then turned to Charles Darwin, Charles Darwin's main influence had been his father, we all know Darwin’s work all he did was continue the work of his father, so we should consider Charles Darwin's father as important.
At the present time, although we have obtained much information, about the historical influence of human beings, modern scientific exploration into history will eventually link the various human skeletal remains into some sort of natural developing order, we are told that people with our abilities were around 50,000 years ago, we realise that within a modern world new information is beating produced every day, and some of that information is available quickly, the range of new information is so broad that we are unable to encompass it in the main, but with perfect health and a good education, we can understand many things very quickly, as far as my perceived box within education goes, concentrating on the child from five years of age to 12 years of age, we are doing two separate things.
What are the two things we are trying to achieve? Firstly we are trying to achieve perfection in basic skills, reading ability develops over the lifetime of the individual, and is dependant on what they read individually. We are concentrating on seven years of the child's life, it has long been my perception that we can learn things very quickly from television and film, but brain development and ability are far more enhanced by reading, the only way we can encourage a child to read, is by the use of the story, where we are dealing with very young children, around five years of age and under, we can utilise valuable stories from well produced recordings, stories grasp the child's full attention, stories develop the child’s ability to visualise, stories contain valuable information which is subliminally incorporated within the child's world, stories keep children attached closely to books, books themselves can carry every piece of information, sometimes within words, sometimes within pictures, that a child needs to provide it with the basic education and preparation for an ever growing in complication world that it will enter at 12 years of age.
My concept education plan, must encompass the individual child, a pair of children a handful of children, 10 children, or twenty or a thousand children together.
My concept education plan, requires input and consideration, from anyone who is concerned about the world's future, from anyone who is concerned about the future in education, from anyone who is concerned about their own children, only by intensive consideration and examination, can we learn anything, or can we prove anything.
My concept education plan, will banish boredom from the classroom, studying the abacus and becoming ever more aware of its possibilities, and possibilities created by similar perceptions within teaching, will inevitably lead to enhanced teaching methods
I realise that I have only just scratched the surface on this particular topic.
My concept education plan, means doing, every child needs to build skeletons of information, if we take geography, within my own web sites, I have developed a chanting theme, which is a good starting point, over a couple of weeks utilising this method of education, part of the geographical skeleton which the child needs in developing its personal geographical skeleton, will become established, we then need to build on that, what would be wrong with laying out the world on the school room or the playground floor, model ships can carry goods from country to country, apart from the spatial aspect of where a country lies, and establishing the name of the country, it is my own opinion, that every other geographical fact can be assimilated from reading, or pictures that give explanation, alongside films from television and DVD, all manner of easily assimilated techniques and information, are effectively welded to the skeleton of geographical information, that I considered to be, the essential geographical skeleton.
Within my conception of education, this geographical natural assimilation of knowledge, illustrates the ideas and concepts, that can be practically achieved, by building strong bones on any educational concept, or for that matter any concept whatsoever.
Universal Education How I Think It Can Be Achieved - John Nicholson - 15-06-2006
More material for the Bush school concept.
Learning to identify every country in the world, needs to take place as quickly as a child can grasp the idea of where each country lies, obviously countries like Australia and New Zealand are easy to identify, they make an ideal starting point, alongside the British Isles for the English Scots, Irish and Welsh, the Great Britain`s.
Using a chant and tying that chant up with numbers, helps children, to identify groups of countries, naturally children need to identify the different seas, and the different continents. It is not vital that every child identifies every country constantly, becoming aware of the spatial position of the different continents, and the different seas, provides them with the background to easily assimilate general facts, capital cities, rivers and mountains, and all matters of geographical interest, it is far better to contemplate the Amazon and running through Brazil, and emptying into the South Atlantic, and the River Nile, running through Egypt, emptying into the Mediterranean Sea, these geographical facts attach themselves naturally to the spatial memory within the mental map of the world, the child has developed as a geographical starting point.
Within my own perception, I see a child building a mental map of the world, in just the same manner as I see a child, building a mental map of mathematics, all of us are subconsciously unaware of the words we use to ask questions, or give explanation, before it is initiated, language is the most usually subconsciously prepared.
In this manner it differs greatly from the visual perception, the child develops from the use of the abacus, using an abacus allows a child to develop a visual recognition of numbers, when a child is asked what is 125, and the child has been taught mathematics on the abacus, it well understands, that there is 100, that there are two tens, and five separate units, the abacus allows visualisation to develop naturally, in just the same way that repeated visualisation and attention are paid to geographical maps, so is visualisation and attention, developing a child's mathematics perception, while it uses an abacus.
and the young children are subconsciously grasping the meaning of thousands of words, many words are understood by the child a long time before it can speak, and during the many veried activities, that different children experience, gives explanation to the different levels of understanding and appreciation or of individual children's vocabulary.
Virtually all our language appreciation is in my opinion subconsciously acquired both within the home and the school, we have certainly no need to develop a child vocabulary directly, simply by involving the child with arithmetic maters, subconsciously builds the child's mathematics language ability, in the same manner and style, that the child builds its geographical language ability.
We can mentally visualise mathematics taking place, we cannot visualise the production of the sentence in the manner in which I am speaking to you now using a word recognition system.
The use of a word recognition system, has developed my own personal understanding of the production of sentences and speech genraly, in the greater part of speech with virtually unaware of the words we are using to give explanation and make inquiry.
Every child should be encouraged and assisted to read a least one book a week, from the age of five to the age of 12 years, if we can establish this valuable habit, the childs general education will take care of itself after that.
Reading for pure pleasure, develops reading ability, develops vocabulary ability, and develops the child's perception of different ideas, different concepts, provides the child with the ability to utilise its perception of image in action, it is visualisation ability, and eventually a massive ability “within imagination†we all possess ability within image in action, we all possess the visualisation by which we understand those ideas, but unfortunately insufficient of us, posses true imagination abilities, and the ability to draw on that imagination. During our working lives. In this instance I am reminded of Voltaire, who said that metaphysics was something where neither the Speaker , the more the person being spoken to, understood what they were talking about.
In other words I am at the very edge, of my personal ability to give explanation, as to the matters that I perceive to be important, within primary education.
No matter, let me consider what is necessary, as we proceed, my own mind is consistently engaged with the future, and what is necessary to establish a worthwhile future, not only for my own Grand Children, but for every child that has already been born, and for the millions of children that will follow, 10 years of my life has been taken up in considering vital education and the mode of it.
When I consider true imagination, imagination in the manner of our dreams, I am dismayed by the lack of imagination shown within education, broadly, general education shows very little desire to modernise, or experiment in any worthwhile manner, if I cannot give explanation, as to the value of the abacus, within the words I use to illustrate the concepts after ten years of trying, then I am despair, not despair with myself, not despair with agriculturalists and farmers, not with capitalists and entrepreneurs, not even with politicians or the medical profession, or even children, but I surely will be in despair with the world of education, does nothing touch it.
Every child has to have some grasp of history, no one can grasp history, without a firm grasp of mathematics, every five-year-old child is fully aware of its individual history, we need them to consider, the history of its parents, and its grandparents, we need them to consider the geographical movements, that have taken place within their own families, we need them to visualise the change in circumstances, that the modern world is enjoying, in comparison with the difficult and dangerous lives, that have been endured by their own families, over the last hundred years, so apart from studying their own families, they need to be taught, and told of differing centres of civilisations, in many different parts of the world, simply before we can teach history useful, we have to teach mathematics, in order to give the child, a comprehension of time, and we have to teach geography. In order to give the child, a comprehension of place.
For me I have had a brilliant day, I have been delivered of this old computer returned to me in perfect working order with a memory three terms greater, than the memory it was manufactured with, enabling me to write with ease, and give explanation without forethought in the manner of education, that I perceive to be necessary to produce equality within the lives of our future generations.
Educationalists everywhere, I appeal to you directly to take up directly my abacus, and my pacifist humanist ideals and ideas.
Universal Education How I Think It Can Be Achieved - John Nicholson - 15-06-2006
THE PRACTICAL METHODOLOGY
The human brain working in good order, can see something which it understands and remembers forever, instantly.
From the day we are born until the day we die, we see and remember many things perfectly naturally, the child builds up a picture of the people who deal with it, it develops understanding of sounds and the meaning of those sounds, its family language and local dialect and accent are copied by the child allowing it to speak easily to its parents and local friends and relations.
As human beings we are programmed to teach and learn, learn and teach, as I see it, it is only possible for us to give explanation or make inquiry or think. We can think with our eyes shut and in complete silence, where our brain and the visualisation within it, dominate what we are thinking, and how we are thinking. This however is not normal practice, we mix together within family groups, groups of friends, and work colleagues, thinking about the work we do, and the friends we associate with, is central to our thinking, we are throughout our lives constantly refreshing our individual perceptions of life, by meeting with and talking with our friends, by reading the multitude of newspapers and magazines that are available to us, and also by watching television and listening to radio.
Combining all this information, allows as to make decisions, about the way we work, the things we spend our leisure time doing, the way we live, and the manner in which we deal with our family our friends and colleagues within working situations.
Specialisation and technological development as allowed us to raise the standard of living the Western world enjoys far beyond anything previously conceived, scientific development is proceeding at an even faster rate, historical scientific evidence places humankind with similar abilities to modern day human beings, over 50,000 years ago.
For only 5000 years have the most fortunate had the ability to read, it is unlikely that any more than half of the people that are alive today can read, thankfully however radio and television have too a large extent superseded reading in carrying day-to-day knowledge.
Individual reading ability, will for ever, be the key to individual education. Wide and variable reading, enlarges the perception of the individual, especially so where individual experience is so restricted, and for most of us this is particularly so, we are restricted by time and expense to gain the necessary knowledge we need within the modern world from travel and experience alone.
Between the ages of five and 12 years old, most children wherever they are in the world have the benefit of family care, without some form of schooling children have to rely on their own individual families experience and expertise in teaching. Many parents have neither ability nor inclination to teach their own children, many countries have little facility or the financial ability to develop the facilities to provide good education for their children.
By identifying and providing the very best education in the Western world we should be able to provide those facilities and that level of achievement by remodelling Third World schools, when it comes to reading, after a child has learnt the alphabet, with both the alphabet sound and the phonetic alternative sounds, and after the child has learnt to read between 100 and 200 words or in some cases part words, the child needs to read with an individual reading assistant, a well educated 11-year-old child, would provide all the assistance a five-year-old child needed to be able to teach it to read properly and thoroughly.
In practical terms at least one hour a day needs to be set aside from our 11-year-old children, in order for them to teach and learn about teaching our five-year-old children, in this manner we would be utilising our best educated children within primary schools to assist our least well educated children to do the most important thing they will ever need to do, to read thoroughly, to read proficiently, and to read widely, in order that following them having been taught to read proficiently, they go on to enjoy a full and happy reading life. For most children, if they have not developed the reading habit by the time they are 10 years old they will be unlikely to develop it throughout the rest of their lives, many children who could read well, have never been encouraged to read, we have five years to encourage the reading habit within primary schools, it is vital that we use this time efficiently.
What would be wrong with setting aside the last hour of the school day for all those children that can read, to read individually any book whatsoever approved by the school,
many children having enjoyed a book for one hour at school would be likely to proceed with it in their leisure time in the evening, especially so when the subject matter of the book encompasses their own interests.
Younger children who had not yet mastered individual reading ability, would benefit enormously from listening to well read well-written stories which developed their imaginative ability, the last hour of every primary school day, should become recognised as the literary hour, devoted entirely to the promotion of individual reading ability and everything which this means.
The primary school day divides naturally into four quarters, the first quarter of every primary school day will provide us with our numeracy hour, we could usefully divide this time, into showing and doing, especially within the reception class, the children will benefit from being shown, and especially the children from the year above, will reinforce the knowledge they gained in their reception year, by consistently changing partners in a showing exercise with the reception class children, abacus One is a powerful visual teaching tool, half an hour being shown and showing how to use it, over a two-year period would be sufficient to establish competent basic arithmetic procedure, to be understood utilising any type of abacus, virtually every child that had been shown for one year and was showing other children for another year, would have built a mental map of mathematics which the child would carry throughout its life.
Storytelling builds up within the child's mind appreciation of conscious concepts and subconscious ability within the extension and use of the vocabulary, stories are remembered by a child as visual concepts, it isn't necessary for us to use precise words to describe those concepts, but with mathematics we have to be precise, Richard Feynman one of America's most noted physicist and mathematician's whenever he was asked the most important thing that he had ever learnt, always replied the difference between words and the meaning of words.
Within mathematics words are precise, they have an exact meaning, during early mathematics lessons with an abacus, every child using it is building a physical meaning of numbers, each hand has five fingers the right-hand column of abacus one or any abacus, except the Japanese abacus whose right-hand column represents nine, contains or can contain, the representation of two hands, 10 fingers, the whole basis of the decimal system, the child only needs to utilise 30 separate words and seven column`s to identify and describe every number from one to one million.
The column second to the right is representational, each tablet or marker on the 10 column represents two hands together, I utilise the visual concept of a cat to assist the Child in the realisation that each marker is two hands together, the child simply counts in 10`s chanting is utilised to establish easy memory of the counting, in the same manner the age old chanting of the times table establishes permanent memory, able to be instantly drawn down on, once the times table`s have been learnt by chanting. (Rote learning) that rote learning can be fully understood by visualisation on the abacus.
Universal Education How I Think It Can Be Achieved - John Nicholson - 28-06-2006
http://www.parenting-baby.com/Parenting-Baby-Music-Research/index1.html
Every child that can play a piano is easier to teach in any subject, a simple electronic keyboard is an esential for every child wherever financialy possible.
THE FINAL WORD IN READING TEACHING
http://www.nychold.com/talk-stotsky-051002.doc
very usefull review
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/product-description/1572307684/104-9491036-1759169
where my own research started ten years ago updated.
http://www.riggsinst.org/MultiSensory.aspx
Universal Education How I Think It Can Be Achieved - John Nicholson - 09-07-2006
Intellectual ignorance or intellectual arrogance
Throughout my life I have always been argumentative. When anyone offers a positive theory, my natural instinct, is always to take an opposite view, many years ago traveling in South Africa, arguing about apartheid with a dedicated Afrikaner, he temporarily backed down on his view, with the words I have only had a limited education, contrary as always, I replied with the point, that so as everyone else.
Having received or taken advantage of very little formal education, the fact is that we all have at whatever level we consider we have been educated to, a limited education; it is something that I have considered many times.
When David Beckham scores a goal from half the pitch away, he used his foot to kick the ball, but more importantly he used his mind to control his foot, someone somewhere with a mind like Socrates, may influence other human beings, someone somewhere with a mind like Einstein or Thomas Edison made provide us with something useful, most ideas and concepts, maybe both useful and dangerous, Einstein was formally educated at the highest level, but he described his knowledge as no more than a handful of sand on the beach, was Einstein more intelligent then Thomas Edison, who was educated by his mother, or Socrates, who was taught by the intelligentsia of his day.
The point that I am trying to make, is that intelligence comparison, within human beings, living their lives within different circumstances and conditions, Is virtually impossible, and usually totally irrelevant, our present-day life style is both created and sustained by technology, millions of individual intelligences have been utilised together to create our modern world.
Reading and mathematics are only a vital starting point, musical ability, artistic ability, along with many physical skills, need to be absorbed and developed by all children.
If Socrates and Thomas Edison, can manage without a formal education, then so can many more of us. Between four and twelve years of age, we have sufficient time to prepare our children, giving them the ability to continue their own education to any level whatsoever, provided that they have been motivated, and guided towards the appropriate courses and the resources, which we possess in every possible physical form.
Ba is only the noise a sheep makes, when we add the letter t we have a bat, when we add the letter g we have a bag, when we add the letter r we have a bar.
The human brain works at the speed of light, most things that we need to know, can be grasped instantly, but the ability to read it is not one of those things, the purpose of this simple illustration, to demonstrate the importance of letters, to demonstrate that one small missing piece of knowledge may disable our perception of many concepts.
At four years of age, the majority of children are well able to begin to learn to read right and account, within the English-language familiarisation with thirty six symbols is always the starting point, chanting one to one, or one thousand to one, will provide every child with a permanent memory of the sounds we used to identify those symbols, interaction in every conceivable manner will quickly establish permanent memory
of sound and sight association.
Within every group of children the point in establishing permanent memory, off each of those thirty six symbols will be totally different. Given the correct resources and allowing the children to react with each other, in either a class group or a whole school group, working with an abacus in pairs or groups of different ability, quickly allows the individual child to develop its individual ability to work with simple sums independently.
The child is developing its own ability within mathematics, simply by counting and utilising the appropriate adding or subtraction techniques on abacus one, working independently is the manner in which the child will become familiar with the mental process that is involved within the concept of “mental arithmetic”
providing that the 36 symbols are taught properly and permanent sight and sound memory in association are established clearly virtually one hundred percent of children would have the ability to work independently both within simple reading and mathematics by the time they were six years old, establishing these abilities during the first two years of any school should not involve more than two hours a day, and most likely considerably less than this over the two-year period.
Learning to play the piano, becoming creative with in artistic mediums, listening to stories on tapes, utilising appropriate video, developing the individual reading ability, developing the individual mathematic ability and working together learning chess and other appropriate games, alongside the benefits of maximum association within in schools, utilising computers, learning to type efficiently, learning basic geography, utilising historical stories to create natural interest associated with stories in establishing historical awareness with the use of still photographs, some limited film, and generally useful artifacts of an appropriate nature.
Many ancillary subjects need to be incorporated within developing a child's ability to write and give explanation.
Within every stage and subject children need to become involved in both teaching and learning, a newly acquired skill or memory, are best established permanently by repetition and practice.
Universal Education How I Think It Can Be Achieved - John Nicholson - 18-07-2006
What we learn where we learn when we learn
Obviously knowledge itself is infinite, human knowledge with seven billion human beings on earth at the present time is also infinite.
The natural manner in which knowledge is created is affected by time itself, the daily increase in human knowledge is one times seven billion, the possibilities of one individual simply absorbing knowledge throughout one day has to be multiplied by 7 billion.
Obviously therefore individually we have very little chance of knowing much about even the things we consider ourselves to be a specialist in.
Two years ago at a conference of accelerated learning in Cambridge, I was lucky enough to meet and be taught by Tony Buzan, he was concentrating mainly on what he considers to be his most important development of the concept known as mind mapping. Mind mapping itself needs to be developed, it can become a useful visual memory efficient, working tool, especially when it is used within primary education, mind mapping concerns two items representational drawings and words. Primary education can usefully develop these concepts.
However the most important thing Tony Buzan said, for my own personal consumption, was that developing the habit of reading the new scientist was a useful and time efficient manner to keep in touch with all manner of scientific development. Most likely within two hours per week it is possible, reading from cover to cover to share the latest world development within many subjects, the new scientist explores concepts, which can be understood by the lay reader in many areas of scientific research.
Tony Buzan, thank you for this vital piece of knowledge.
The title of this paper, was considered by me, this morning after reading within the new scientist about the latest discoveries within the chain of human development, as long ago as two million years, skeletons and most likely, skulls of our ancient ancestors, alongside developed tools have been discovered, researchers are preparing to rewrite humanoid history. A Darwinian explanation of human development scientifically being built around new discoveries, and with the use of new discoveries, it was within the last lines of this article, where the right to use words which thrilled me, his interpretation of the subject was that “ absence of evidence was not evidence of absenceâ€
Exactly my own view on abacus efficacy within teaching.
Having been concerned with farming, most of my life, then moving on to individual justice, moving from individual justice, as to how individual justice can best be achieved, with the realisation that education in all manner and means, hold the key to individual justice, and from that, that primary education holds the key to education itself, and from within primary education, that mathematics was the closest example to logical reason, in other words mathematics in itself represents thinking.
How do we teach our children how to think, we teach them mathematics, how do we teach them mathematics, obviously there must be a million ways to teach mathematics, obviously one way must be better than any other way, and it is to this way, that I have devoted my life.
Watching Chinese children with or without an abacus answer mathematical problems, that European children would be incapable of answering, unless they had been taught in a similar manner, proved to me the value of the abacus.
The abacus itself’, taught me, that by simple steps, by gaining three-dimensional knowledge, it is possible, to teach a healthy human being, virtually anything.
It is the simple logistics of how we effectively teach children from four years of age until they are 12 years old that concerns me, within business it is the home education, that is the most important, individual business skills are acquired simply by repetition and experience, on the very last day of a businessman's life, he will be lecturing his children on the finer details of his latest thoughts on all manner and means to improve the family business.
Luckily I am not on my deathbed I hope, with one son and six daughters, nearly 5 grandsons, four granddaughters, and one great-granddaughter, with three daughters that still may have children, and half the world unable to read and write, my lecturing and learning shall never cease,
Within my own mentality and sometimes within the words, I am constantly endeavoring to give explanation as to what I have learned, what I have considered, and how we can overcome the problems of developing an educational model, obviously we all learn the different things, obviously we all learnt different things at different rates, what happens to a child before it is four years old, societies have very little affect over a preschool child's life, the world needs a simple educational system, things that would be of value within a simple educational system, would be on even more value, in a well funded western school, we would prevent wasting the children's time, we would cause the Child to become far more involved, we would broaden the curriculum, we would concentrate on what is essential, and between four and 12 years of age, developing the physical ability of the brain is far more important then developing the child's depth of knowledge.
Developing the physical ability of the brain.
Playing the piano develops a physical ability of the brain, having a conversation with another child, developes the physical ability of the brain, drawing a mind map and filling it full of words, develops and physical ability of the brain. Spending one hour independently working with mathematics first in sums and then in broader concept developes the physical ability of the brain. Playing chess at high speed with every child in a class develops the physical ability of the brain. Reproducing and consideration of artistic masterpieces develops the physical ability of the brain.
A12-year-old child is well able to go out into the world and to do some physical and mental activity which will assist it to comprehend and take part within the modern world.
We have to consider that physical ability is never without mental ability, as I was considering about what I intended to write alongside considering the development of human beings, I was specifically considering that our waking eyesight most likely took up the major part of our brains, but within human experience the physical awareness of words and the meaning of words, always takes conscious president.
We have to physically do things, physical building of mental ability, occurs within everything we do, at 12 years of age every healthy child, needs to spend a great deal of time within some sort of working experience, obviously we need to guard against work exploitation of children, but children need to be able to work, every child needs to know how to grow its own food, and it is essential that every child needs to be able to prepare it is own food. If we are to educate our children properly we have to acquaint them with many forms of physical Endeavour, eventually children choose a particular skill or career but to enable them to wake wise choices we have to broaden their early experiences
It is only by gaining experience that we can gain a real understanding of anything, we have to combine intellectual and physical ability, we have to address the importance of physical and mental combination within everything we do, we may well understand words or the meaning of words, but that understanding is always individual, we may consider that others understand what we mean by words, but it is very unlikely that the meaning of any complicated sentence shall be considered in an exact manner by everyone that ever reads it,
However words are all that we can ever rely on to explain the most complicated of human concepts, therefore it is within words and conversation that general human dialogue takes place, we have to abandon our tribal instinct’s, we have to combine our human abilities education should be at the forefront of every which human process we need to address, but first we must address the process of education itself.
My writing is concerned with developing my own limited mental ability, and the limited mental ability of those around us who would consider themselves to be called intellectuals.
As the summary to what I have written today, I shall add my essence of education or my best description of it.
But our survival depends on knowledge both individually and communally. Hence my
Essence of Education
“ The central purpose of education is to allow us to understand the world we live in and to think about our personal and collective actions in order to enhance them.â€
SO HOW DO WE TRANSFER KNOWLEDGE SIMPLY
FIRST OFF WE TEACH MATHEMATICS which is a knowledge and thought exorcise. .Then we teach reading, gaining knowledge and THAT ability in order to “ SURVIVEâ€
Universal Education How I Think It Can Be Achieved - John Nicholson - 23-07-2006
What we know and what we do not know,
The crux of education has simply to be the improvement/ enhancement of our ability to reason. We all use reason, even a toddler uses reason naturally, it took the human race approximately 50,000 years to develop the ability to read, that is to transform language through symbols into meaning. Scientists believe human brain ability as we possess it at the present time was developed some 50,000 years ago.
What does this mean, it means that we are terribly slow learners, our automatic abilities are incredible, the vast majority of what any individual understands, is naturally assimilated from the world around it.
To develop our instant ability to learn, it is vital that we have the best possible ability within reading and mathematics, the ability to reason is based on our personal knowledge and the ability to gain knowledge springs naturally from our abilities within basic skills.
Within our normal thought package we are simply unaware of many things that we cannot learn naturally, reading and writing and mathematics are the most dramatic abilities that we cannot learn naturally, we need to take a hammer and chisel to establish the 36 symbols (vital within the English language) with all there vast possibilities into the human brain.
Throughout our lives, the problems we face are exaggerated through a lack of multitudes of small pieces of information, personal reasoning ability fills many gaps, our western lifestyle, is created by the contribution of millions of minds, analysis within any subject, or any tool, any machine, any piece of engineering, any piece of architecture identifying the unseen combined mentality surrounding our present day lives, should make us more aware of the individual inability to provide the things we need in our everyday life, giving us a true level of understanding, of our personal limitations, and an appreciation of the unlimited possibilities within human life, when we combine our intellectual ability to provide the human race with useful peaceful technology, alongside the logical exploitation of that technology that common sense dictates.
I started to write this piece of writing, trying to simply illustrate the disadvantage of our personal abilities, and to illustrate also how often, a small piece of information or obstacle prevents us from realisation within the value of the things that surround us, I intended to use an illustration from a favourite author of mine, Richard Jeffries a small farmers son and dreamer, an observer of nature and in his own way a philosopher, his illustrations of country people in a book called Hodge and his masters, in the mid-19 80s is incredible, as is all his stories of the countryside, culminating in his piece de resistance “The story of my heart.â€
Richard Jeffries said that when he lay in his bed in Cote farmhouse near Swindon as he looked from his bedroom window one small leaf on a tree outside prevented him seeing a star thousands of miles away until the wind gently blew the leaf aside allowing him perfect vision.
My day-to-day work at this moment, is working in association, with a maths graduate in the development of teaching techniques associated with the use of the abacus, Louisa is a competent mathematician I asked her to solve mathematical problem, how do you plant 10 trees in five rows of four, she took 20 minutes to do this, personally and I had taken longer, but a child I had taught on the abacus did it as a second diagram, the first diagram had been a simple cross.
The mental abilities of any child which is taught mathematics thoroughly either with the use of an abacus or in any other manner is normally more efficient in comparison to a child that has little mathematical ability.
Every healthy child, can be taught mathematics properly, and extremely easily by the use of an abacus, my own development of the abacus, enhanced as the teaching of mathematics, it simplifies the child's understanding of place value, it teaches a child in the natural manner of learning, where simply by doing things we establish a permanent memory.I have identified 33 different ways of creating a pattern with numbers to create 10.
Louise are who is teaching children with difficulties in maths understanding, is now utilising the abacus and developing natural teaching processors with it, we have together preparing visual lessons with finger illustration concerning every pattern and mode of all numbers from one to 10 in order that any child can appreciate the creation of any sum in a visible(and therefore mental) form.
Making the child aware of these numbers in their visual form from one to 10 and all the possibilities therein is purely preparation for dealing with the right-hand column of the abacus. This is the only column on an abacus that is a concrete realization, this right-hand column therefore alongside the fingers, which we described as the finger column, gives us the basis of decimalisation within numbers.
Every number large or small, negative or positive, decimal or fraction, can only ever be described as a relative to ONE.
The abacus best illustrates our form of written numbers, once we understand the properties of 10 and the sequence of the properties of each column, every child has the tools to proceed independently within the solving of mathematical sums, basic mental imaging associated with easily understood notation provides the working tools for mathematics however complex that may become.
I shall include with this piece of writing a website which carries a number of IQ tests which I am enjoying alongside my own website for Abacus One.
http://abacusone.net/
http://www.forms.ge/iq.htm
Universal Education How I Think It Can Be Achieved - John Nicholson - 28-07-2006
It arrived yesterday,
my Chinese babies twins by express post.
When i saw them with groves for little fingers, with turned up wings,to prevent even the most determined destroyer twisting the counters from there track, with mini runners (like a sledge) under iether side of the counters,
My low case words in proud black on shining ivory white background, the simulated moving page, that tells the story of mathmatics, that teaches any child maths, in the same manner as we learn to driive a car, simply by doing it, as the accelerated learners claim for the mind to move the body must grove.
It is over ten years since i became aware of the power of the abacus, five years since i made my first model, three years since my first attempt to produce it in the uk, but now at last i have the perfect tool.
A tool for every child in their own language, or any language.
it was a coincidence that the New York Sorraban School spoke up for abacus teaching on the thread i started for easy learning in the last few days, we need to hear more from them.
As far as i am aware only Geoff has seen a working model of my abacus, although you can see it on abacus one.net hopefully he will take some for the Kids in western austrailia asp.
My girl luiesa as already provided strong argument for visualisation in verbal explanation with an educational cyco. i belive my girl wone ten nill i decimal, terms.
I thought i only had to make a better mousetrap to have the world beat a track to my door but sadly i was mistaken, but now there are three of us in east yorkshire that belive in abacuss one, a fifty% increase.
For each new posting on this thread we are getting about tweny views,
i really apreciate those twenty,just considering a strange opinion is usefull interlectually.
My everlasting thanks for this forum and its intentions i hope eventual my work will be of value and this forum reachout to the world.
thankyou my twenty
john nicholson
Universal Education How I Think It Can Be Achieved - John Nicholson - 30-07-2006
WHY IS LEARNING MATHS EASY WITH AN
ABACUS
All mathematic concepts are based on numbers.
All mathematic processes have a relationship with counting.
The abacus is the world's earliest counter, the first human technical tool, over eight thousand years old,
Simply by counting numbers and then adding or subtracting the process of calculation takes place.
Those calculations are achieved by physical movement, apart from creating a number and then either adding it to an existing number or taking it away from an existing number the abacus user achieves an answer without thought, in just the same manner as we utilise a modern calculator.
But with one vital difference, the process of calculation is visual on the abacus and unseen on the calculator.
Visualisation is the secret of the abacus. My development of
ABACUS
ABACUS ONE is the perfect teaching tool.
Association with this abacus is possible as the child learns to speak.
The parent or the child simply moves up the first counter, counting and movement are combined, one two three four five six seven eight nine ten.
Perfect visualisation, we then exchange the symbol of ten, with the reality of ten counters, with our left-hand we move the symbol of ten to the top of the abacus where it represents ten, and at the same time moving ten counters in exchange to the bottom of the abacus.
Transferring Ten quickly becomes a subconscious action carried out by both teacher and pupil.
With only the written word ten in place on the abacus we continue our count, starting again with one as we move it upwards we say ten and one are eleven, continue ten and two are twelve, ten and three are thirteen, ten and four are fourteen, ten and five are fifteen, ten and six are sixteen, ten and seven are seventeen, ten and eight are eighteen, ten and nine are nineteen, ten and ten are twenty.
With two hands we exchange the symbol of twenty, with the reality of ten.
It is only when we reach 110 that we need to repeat the addition
110 + 1 is one hundred and eleven.
In ten years I have tried to improve on this layout, I have never produced any better lay out, only in this edition of explanation
Have I managed to utilise the concept of the teens.
This abacus can be produced in any language or overwritten
In stickers in any language or symbol of numbers.
This written explanation is as near perfect as any I have ever made. If you are able to improve on it please feel free.
Starting to use this abacus at the same time as the child is learning to read is a vital part of reading instruction every healthy person can drive a car, every healthy child can drive an abacus.
Comprehension of numbers takes place within the human brain in exactly the same manner as the comprehension of every other word, every number is no more or less then an idea, but an idea clearly understood by a child that is taught arithmetic on an abacus.
EVERY CHILD SHOULD HAVE ONE
Universal Education How I Think It Can Be Achieved - John Nicholson - 05-09-2006
Well my journey is virtually over, I have been at home 10 days now, catching up on my life in east Yorkshire, when I describe my journey as virtually over I am reminded of an old Irishman that I once met on a ferry coming from Germany, when I asked him what he did he said to me in the most whimsical of Irish manners, my race is run, and at 66 years of age and so much misadventure behind me I guess I could almost say the same thing, but I am having to brace myself to continue to do what I consider to be most important thing that I have ever tried to do, that is to introduce the abacus to the teaching world and there is only one possible way that this can happen that is the need to impress upon governments and their educational advisers that the methods and techniques that I am developing alongside the abacus are the correct way to proceed in developing universal education without the need to resort to building schools colleges and universities, after all you are reading this on the world's greatest education tool, millions of people have been involved in this sophisticated teaching machine, which we call the Internet, millions of individuals have provided some part of this wonderful universal facility, obviously children and students need guidance for their using of it, but that guidance can easily be provided from the facility itself.
My concern is with children who find learning difficult, children who find learning boring, children who have no chance of education unless something simple and efficient is introduced into their world. Once the abacus is introduced throughout the world, by that I mean getting through to the nucleus of educators who will provide basic direction towards simple teaching techniques which can be developed both from the abacus itself, and even more so from the demonstration of visualization as the greatest aid to teaching and totally comprehendible by virtually every healthy child, not only is the abacus comprehendible by every healthy child, once any child any where in the world learns the lessons of the Abacus it has directly the ability to teach the lessons of the abacus.
My thinking of visual techniques build on to reading quickly some of my own grandchildren have already proven the value of my reading techniques.
Looking at something as simple as art, copying photographs first of great artists and then of their work, would be a visualization and in itself an unforgettable introduction to the world's great artists, can you imagine painting van Goff copying some of his most dramatic work and forgetting the name of the man and the fashion of painting he uses.
If we use our imagination we can develop visualization and apply it in active participation to every level of teaching, many concepts we can read of once and retain that concept, do you think it will be possible for you to forget what I am telling you now. Most of you who are reading this have been brought up on farms, will you ever forget your life as children on farms, how many children could be introduced to farming and benefit from it, how many you young men could be given the job on a farm, and develop into a useful member of society, rather than being introduced to drugs and the aimless life of the street.
I no longer see farms as places just to produce food, I see farms where children can be taught all manner of useful skills where they can develop their education where they can develop their imagination where they can learn to grow things, where they can learn to look after themselves where they can learn to cook their own food, where they can be made safe from pedophiles and bullies of all descriptions, every child in the United Kingdom would benefit from spending some months on a farm, we have the room to build up of accommodation for children and parents to spend some time involving agricultural and countryside pastimes, we appear at the moment not to need wall-to-wall wheat and potatoes, where else can people live comfortably and peacefully other than the countryside, the Labour government has failed our young people, young couples getting married for the first time are facing building plots that cost all were £100,000 we are putting them on to an economic treadmill, for families where parents cannot help young people are committed to banks for the eternity of their lives, in 10 years of labour rule we have seen house prices rise over 300% no young couple can look forward to a secure future without a reasonably priced home, and unfortunately in the United Kingdom this does not seem possible at the moment. We need far more development within the countryside not only where people can live but where they can enjoy the countryside and the farming lives and that means extra accommodation for families on farms themselves, with lower prices to produce a handful of secure holiday housing would provide many farms with the income to sustain themselves.
So as you see I have returned home in a very thoughtful mood, after the excitement of China where everything seems to be happening, the building of new roads and new homes, alongside what looked like to me a very efficient agricultural industry, Chinese farms are out of necessity are small, but they are extremely well-managed and looked to me as efficient as small farms can be, they provide a Home and a workplace for the individual, and the maximum amount of food that the land is capable of producing, for the benefit of their fellow Chinese individuals, i cannot be more impressed with any country in the world then I have been with china, anyone who possesses sky television would be well advised to spend a few hours watching the Chinese news programs there are many useful educational and informing programs being produced by Chinese television for the world at large, whilst I was in a Sydney bookshop I came across an edition in English written by the vice-chairman of China who was for 10 years in charge of Chinese education, with my interest in education and have already found many similarities within his approach to education, to the thinking that I'm done in my contemplation of universal education in far off places with little resources, but with out a determined leader the likes of that vice-chairman, to inshore that even the most disadvantaged Chinese child in the furthest province of the country has been enabled to receive, six years of primary education.
Socialist thinking but utilising the more modern technological developments the world has produced in the most efficient manner possible, the Chinese adoption of technology both within education and efficient production of goods leave the rest of the Third World far behind, during my time in India I was impressed by what they were trying to do, I am sure the things are on there way quickly in India, but the Chinese model would be extremely hard to beat, following the last great European war, our countries who were already impoverished wasted billions in futile war, but were rewarded with technology which could be adapted to peacetime production, we have had almost 60 years now of technical advancement, with the determination and the provision of technology we could only have dreamed of the Chinese will reform the country during the next 10 years, we have to be mindful that we do not rely too much on their production, we must not lose the ability to produce worthwhile goods at prices we can afford, tripling the cost of housing is a disadvantage in our community, planning regulations and restrictions need to be considered closely if we are to develop and keep developing ahead of our Asian cousins.
Universal Education How I Think It Can Be Achieved - John Nicholson - 18-10-2006
I moved directly from China to the most developed Asian country there is, I moved to Japan arriving in Japan in early September I was amazed at the heat and liquidity of the air, it was over 36° and carrying with me a hundred abacus and my luggage, from the airport to the hotel that had been arranged for me in central Tokyo just about finished me off, the Japanese have an efficient train and underground service, but it is difficult to manage in the first instance, for some reason best known to themselves, they have failed to teach even basic English to the majority of the population, choosing intelligent young people to ask the format of the railways in the language and sound that I had never heard before soon proved to me that very few of the Japanese people could speak any English, presumably their government feels that they can protect their culture, without what they must consider to be the corrupting influence of the English-speaking world, this places there young people at a distinct disadvantage, the Japanese have a reserve of manner which I have never come across anywhere in the world previously, walking down the street and seeing two people laughing together, is something very rarely seen in Japanese city, every time I saw anyone laugh I felt like running across and putting a medal on them. It is without doubt the least humorous country in the world.
Anyone visiting Japan would be well advised to travel further into the autumn and winter months, be prepared to meet a country that lives on raw fish, obeys without question most of the laws, where there are the least colorful cloths imaginable, where you see few people smoking and drinking, and where a fat bastard like me is unlikely to be around.
As a humanist and in general a lover of humanity and individuals in particular I met very few Japanese people that I could relate easily to, Japanese women are far more interested in Europeans then the males of the country, even for an old guy like me the females were always prepared to try their hand at what little English they had, and on numerous occasions when making inquirers whilst traveling on the trains Japanese ladies endeavored wherever possible to assist me, so my memories of Japan and not all bad.
It is impossible in Japan to arrange meetings that are at a moments notice, I have visited the last large Japanese abacus maker they call it a Sorbonne in Japan it is like the Chinese abacus but with one button representing five and four buttons representing obviously four, I found it not as useful as the Chinese abacus for young children, but they have developed it to appoint where the Chinese have never traveled, unnecessarily in my opinion some Japanese children spend five or six years learning to do extremely complicated multiplication and division on the Japanese Sorbonne, eventually they can perform magnificent examples of multiplication and division simply by using their brains, in order to do this the child has to visualize all the moves that it makes on the abacus, in my opinion this is a complete waste of time for once we have techniques and simple efficient notation our children can do similar sums at an earlier age simply by using a pen and paper, I fully understand the value of visualization with the abacus, but because of the advantage we have in notation I consider it to be an imposition on the students time which would be better spent learning other things rather than formal manipulations in order to provide an unnecessary example of what the abacus can do.
My interview with this abacus company was short lived, understanding abacus from years of association they were rapidly aware of the benefits of the written in Words abacus, rather than continuing discussion, they were unprepared for me and somewhat overwhelmed, i once heard a well-known Yorkshire Tractor dealer saying to an hotel in London that there would not be many people called Robert B. Webster arriving at their hotel, and they would soon know who he was, I had a similar feeling with the Japanese Sorbonne company, there would not be many JDB Nicholson's arriving on there doorstep with an abacus.
My second interview in Japan was prearranged something very necessary I found with the Japanese, I was introduced to this company Kumon by my Chinese Manufacturer.
Kumon is an educational company known all over the world, I had been introduced to the Company by someone who was using my Manufacturer's facilities, they have a long-term relationship with the company, the principal of the company intended the meeting alongside myself a senior person from the Company and an interpreter, I had asked the third-party company to prepare for the meeting with Japanese words prepared for use with the abacus alongside what I consider to be an abacus map which I have already used in India as an alternative to the abacus itself where an abacus is not available, because of the difficulty in learning their own language they wanted to use written numbers as well as the words of their own language on the abacus, it was only after a considerable period of thought that I realised they were using them on the abacus has a teaching form for learning their own language in numbers as a starting point.
Before a Japanese or Chinese child can read they have to learn at least 5000 words this takes them at great deal of time, a child brought up in a dual language system would read English far quicker than they would be able to read Chinese or Japanese however learning to speak English would be fairly simple when it is associated with numbers which children can understand easily in numerals, of course numerals are now universal.
I have no doubts whatsoever that this Japanese firm will use my abacus eventually but I am sure they will rigorously try to avoid buying it from me, the Japanese after all have been renowned for their ability to copy, and my feeling was that they would copy what I have produced if at all possible.
One lighter moment in Japan I was talking to a rarity a Japanese individual painting a picture of a Palace in central Japan he had good English and had been engaged in the advertising industry all his life, as I was speaking to him a school crocodile started to walk past us, I asked him about the school, he told me that it was the most famous school in Tokyo and that the grandchildren of the Emperor went to that school.
Never wishing to miss an opportunity I made over quickly to ware a schoolmaster was walking hand-in-hand with a child, I explained to him that I have developed an abacus suitable for any child for any language and for use in any country throughout the world, I said to him that I wanted to give an abacus to the Emperor's grandchildren, so I gave two abacus to the Emperor's grandchildren, and the third one that I still carried to the schoolmaster himself, I asked about the ages of the Emperor's grandchildren, he told me that his one was eight years old, presumably the child whose hand he held was the Emperor's grandson.
In the UK this story would have been worth something for a newspaper but trying to get it over to the Japanese newspaper industry proved too much of a difficulty for me.
After finding Japan very hot and very difficult I could not wait to enter the English-speaking world again I am already described my initial evening in Auckland when I was very relieved to join the normal world once again.
Universal Education How I Think It Can Be Achieved - John Nicholson - 18-11-2006
John4Nicholson - 03:55pm Nov 17, 2006 GMT (#236 of 237) | Delete
at three years old he is already following in his fathers footsteps . . . . . . .I
do not think woodentop
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John4Nicholson - 11:07am Nov 18, 2006 GMT (#237 of 237) Edit | Delete
A LETTER FROM CANADA AND AN EXPLANATIVE REPLYDear John,
Thank You very much for your e-mail. Please don't feel like a naughty dog. I know how life gets in the way of doing things. I know your feelings are genuine. I just wanted to tell you about Lance teaching Lachlan the "counting fingers game". Lance was at the kitchen table and held up 1 finger and asked Lachlan how many. Lachlan replied without hesitation "one". Then Lance held up 2 fingers and again asked how many. Lachlan just as quickly replied "two". Then Lance held up 5 fingers and asked how many. Lachlan, not missing a beat replied "lots". I guess he wasn't wrong but he had Lance & I laughing about it for a while.
Lachlan is now recognizing words as I read to him so his "education" is coming along. I hope things turn out well for you with the Abucus. As I mentioned to you on the phone once there are instructions and I can learn it, I will see what I can do about expanding your business to Alberta.
Take care John and please mention a "Hello" to Ro. I look forward to meeting her. Perhaps you both can come for a visit to Canada next time.
All the best,
Tracy
Tracy I love you Thanks for being so kind I love your letter, I am having a massive argument with a prick of a teacher on the guardian website who has harassed me for two years, he has a son of three himself so I shall use your letter as a proof of my argument if you do not mind.
your letter has also made me think of networking through mothers with young children themselves, they are the target market and they will prove and correct any misconceptions within my system, my system follows naturally along after the baby signing which you did and wich is proving so popular everywhere.
It will be much easier to move into local schools where we have a group of enthusiastic mothers asking for their children to be taught in this manner, keep me informed with Lachlan’s progress with the fingers with the exception of this guardian (I hate John Nicholson guy) most people are reporting success with it.
How is your back, I thought when I was staying with you, you would make a fantastic teacher promoter of my simple education new old ideas, why not read through all the crap I have written just in order not to lose any valuable ideas which I might have stumbled across, New Zealand teachers are already interested in my system and I have a written dialog in place with the minister in charge of education there.
what I can do is send fifty abacus to you and you could start some networking situation based around these teaching methods which are really no more then following the findings of Maria Montessori but bringing in abacus one as a better starting product along with our effective low case cards they seem to have worked well for Lachlan especially with your devotion to teaching him.
As a small business while Lachlan is not in full time education, you would make a charge for teaching the individual mothers the system and sell them the products at the same time, you could charge a normal rate of Canadian hourly earnings but take on small groups of mothers at the same time forming some form of club, maybe expanding it into an easily followed farm "wives" learn and teach situation using farm buildings and forming a low cost system where the mothers can take part when they want to, putting in something like one hour for every two hours of child care, a model adapted on these lines would answer many young mothers need for childcare and company when the children are young where a mother needs to work granny can always substitute for the one for two hour system,
This would mean that no one would be directly employed at all, local infant schools would naturally take an interest in it, and the teaching methods are very family friendly.
So we have a model
Abacus & alphabet Maria Montessori principals Parents self teaching and child care
On a small farm or town as well this type of self help model will provide one enthusiastic organizer with a living and a usefull low cost community service with easily understood and open aims educating both mothers and children. (Imitating the model of human behavior best suited to our species, huddling round the camp fire sharing the knowledge and care that has allowed our tribe to survive and prosper)
Tracy we will be friends for ever, love to Lachlan and that kind man you live with. John I will post reading material separately
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Universal Education How I Think It Can Be Achieved - John Nicholson - 26-11-2006
ABACUS ONE AND THE PERCEPTION OF NUMBERS
BUILDING A CHILD'S PERCEPTION OF NUMBERS
USING THE BODY `S NATURAL COUNTERS
A series of hand exercises that can be copied instantly by every child as they develop language ability enables very young children to visualise the true meaning of numbers.
The first count is naturally one to five. Tap the fingers of left hand on any hard surface, counting in rhythm continue with the right hand six to ten developing the natural rhythm of the count, continue this as a first step in the series of hand exorcises developed in association with Abacus One.
These practical hand exercises are the first steps in building neural pathways at the earliest possible opportunity, this educational process is based on the latest international brain research where neurological development has been identified through the latest brain scanning techniques.
Early mathematics comprehension has been identified within numerous studies into brain function as playing a vital part in building the neural pathways associated with reading; we identify this process as the mathematical road to reading.
Tapping Ten is a valuable starting point for any child in mathematics.
Numerals can be written across the top off a sheet of paper ringed around to give the child a tapping point. Small temporary tabs can be stuck to the child's nails, the child can copy the numerals writing under each number so they are writing thinking saying and seeing the number establishing a permanent memory/neural link with the symbol and the meaning of the number. Establishing a neural link between finger symbol and meaning.
Once having established the “meaning/symbol/finger†combination in a horizontal manner, a vertical/column format can be introduced in preparation to using Abacus One, exercises need to be continued for some time after the child can clearly achieve a perfect hand display of the,
TAPPING TEN HANDS AND FINGERS ROUTINE
QUITE A LOT OF TWO YEAR OLDS CAN ACHIEVE THIS
MOST THREE YEAR OLDS CAN DO THIS
ALL FOUR YEAR OLDS CAN DO THIS
EVERY FIVE YEAR OLD SHOULD DO THIS
These are follow on exorcises for very young children and older children
Being introduced to mathematics for the first time,
GIVE ME FIVE FOR FISH ALIVE
Display the left hand with five open fingers
And hold up the right hand showing two fingers
Singing/chanting give me two give me four and just one more.
Holding up the appropriate number of fingers.
THIS IS THE TIME BEST SUITED TO ILLUSTRATE JUST HOW FIVE CAN BE ACHIEVED
SO THE CHILD NEEDS TO COPY THE TEACHER
Five separate fingers, two fingers on one hand three on another, we have already shown 2+2+1 so we move on to show 4+1 and 1+1 +1+2 finally
We move on to 1+1+3 from here we move on to use both hands to reinforce every possible formula to illustrate five.
FROM HERE WE MOVE ONTO THE SUM A SECOND ROUTINE
Exercises always need to be continued for some time after the child can clearly achieve a perfect hand display.
HERE IS A PERFECT EXAMPLE AS TO THE VALUE OF ROTE LEARNING
ROTE LEARNING IS USED CONTINUALLY IN MATHEMATICS
We count to ten along time before we understand ten as we do to one hundred, so having learnt what ten is we can count to one hundred expressing ten open fingers representing ten, so we comprehend ten times ten as our easiest formula for understanding one hundred.
ABACUS ONE CONFIRMS OUR CONCEPT OF TEN
Rote learning comes to our aid again in counting to one hundred in five's,
Five ten fifteen twenty, rote learning establishes the order of twenty numbers
And allows us to understand how five's relate to tens and tens to one hundred
ABACUS ONE CONFIRMS OUR CONCEPT OF ONE HUNDRED IN FIVE'S AND TENS
Rote learning comes to our aid again in ESTABLISHING THE PERMANENT MEMORY of our times tables, singing and chanting our times tables establishes the ability to give an instant answer
An instant answer that we can both prove and understand from counting through all the times tables ON ABACUS ONE.
An instant answer available for a life time of multiplication sum answers.
THE TIMES TABLE IN ROTE IS FOREVER PERFECT
Imagine a Chinese Child having to learn five thousand pictures by rote before it can read.
Rhythmic learning is something that will never disappear from education. It is the natural forerunner of understanding, sometimes permanent always first.
USING THE HANDS TO REINFORCE THE TIMES TABLES
Take either hand or both hands together touch the thumb with the smallest finger, count one two three and four fingers then with thumb up count five,
Smash the fist of one hand into palm of another holding it up to display the fingers transferred into it, five, transfer five by magic to both feet so we have twenty, count five again and screw five into one finger continue till twenty five are established as an idea for one hand, double it twice and we have the perception of one hundred. All numbers can be counted in this manner from one to a million.
IMAGINE HOLDING TWENTY FIVE MILLION IN EACH HAND
Universal Education How I Think It Can Be Achieved - John Nicholson - 28-11-2006
Frank Wilson teaches us that learning that does not in some way involve our hands, particularly with children, denies that part of our humanity that is rooted in the human capacity to learn.
http://www.puppetools.com/kids_workshop/?p=frank
Check out both these two guys
Universal Education How I Think It Can Be Achieved - John Nicholson - 01-12-2006
hi Judy and china
good news for the abacus
I have already secured the money to manufacture 10,000 abacus and ship them to south Africa, the Company Abacus & Alphabet has been given a cheque to cover this but this cheque will not be cleared for a week yet,
the thousand pounds i was going to send you i have unfortunately had to use for my families food telephone and electricity bills, because someone else as not paid me when they said they would.
that money is promised to me today and i will remit as soon as i receive it
if there is any problem this can come next week as a company transfer from abacus & alphabet this company is now opening its first bank account and has already got uncleared funds, (FROM A FRIEND) for the next stage.
A friend of mine Norman Wood is my Proxy Chairman for the Company Abacus & Alphabet he is a very respectable retired government Official Holding 4% personally at the present time, if anything happens to me, this share will go to my son who will then own fifty two% I have six Daughters who own 8% each, any long term value will be used to buy farms to be used as teaching situations, (hopefully in the long Term)
Hopefully one of my daughters will manage Abacus & Alphabet if anything Happens to me,
if it was to be soon Then it would be the eldest Girl Debbie if i get a few more Years alive it will be my youngest daughter Hattie I hope.
OR on an ongoing basis under the authority of my friend I will try to leave someone who can both manage it and understand the significance of it, at the present moment it would have to be my eldest daughter on a part time basis.
I have invested ten years of my life into this already and failure to proceed with my plans would only ensure that I would burn more fiercely in hell,
I am trying to protect our long term future for you as a manufacturer for my family as beneficiaries of my inheritance which is only at this state (an intellectual concept of achievable universal skills training)
BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY THEN YOU I OR MY CHILDREN OR MYSELF
is the miserable future of millions of children who will not be able to benefit from my work and ideas.
We now have a form ABACUS & ALPHABET LTD and the seed finance to introduce this idea to the south of Africa, you have my energy and my strength and my WILL this letter is both to advise every one concerned with this project and provide a short term WILL to protect the concept
UNIVERSAL BASIC SKILLS THE RIGHT OF EVERY CHILD BORN
INTELLECTUAL PROGRESS
I have secured a contact that will defiantly lead to British acceptance and adoption of my concepts within Middlesborough first then throughout the U K through the government Sure Start Program.
Thank you Matt Hudson for your instant assessment of the value of the project.
Yesterday was a major turning point in my life because of your work vision and contacts.
Hopefully everyone who needs to be aware of where we are with this will be informed by this letter.
Thank you all very much for your assistance and patience
John Nicholson
:pcprob: ONLY BY HAMMERING AWAYAT THIS PROBLEM WILL IT EVER BE
------------SOLVED
------------------------:anyone: YOU ARE ALL EQUALLY RESPONSIBLE
------------------------------------so please pull your fingers out
Universal Education How I Think It Can Be Achieved - John Nicholson - 03-01-2007
This is the most comprhensive explanation i have found on the web giving axample and explanation between Aisian and Western education with my added reasoning following on, i guess the lead came from here anyway.
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:Gv4yZN4TmGsJ:www.gdn.edu/faculty/l_fowler/Fowler_article.rtf+%22asian+teachers+polish%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1
ABACUS ONE
OBSERVATIONS PERTINENT TO THE USE
OF ABACUS ONE and the mathematical road to reading, what can we learn from this paper. This is a relatively recent study of the difference and results between American schools and modern Chinese schools in Taiwan and Japan.
What conclusions are drawn by the researchers and what further consideration may we bring to the attention of anyone reading these papers.
All three education systems are well financed and backed by the latest research and practice in each situation, children are regarded as being equally intelligent in all three situations, yet the results signify Asian advanced achievement in mathematics.
My perception is that Asian teaching is constantly attempting to show students what is happening, and American and obviously British schools are still attempting to tell students what is happening.
All the latest brain research results go along with the simple observations made by Maria Montessori Over 100 years ago, children learn best from doing, children learn best from seeing, children learn best from taking part in procedures that are specifically designed to educate, Asian practice imitates Maria Montessori's findings perfectly.
Although a modern British and American School may possess abacus of various descriptions for the use and demonstration for and to their pupils, British and American schools do not possess teachers who have themselves been brought up utilising their various national abacus.
Abacus one is a personal abacus, the child utilises it in the same manner as we utilise any PC computer, Abacus one techniques can be regarded as saturation mathematics, 10 years research and observation regarding children learning perfect mathematics has identified the truth of the observations that Maria Montessori made nearly a century ago.
Abacus One teaching program starts by ensuring that every child identifies each finger on the appropriate hand clearly and in the same practical manner this means looking at the hands from the back, exercises are designed to simplify the child's problem in identifying the numbers and relating to their numbers the individual fingers concerned, but the sooner the child identifies these fingers after it learns to speak the more able it is to use the concept of numbers within its natural thinking process.
That thinking process is essential in developing the child's mind naturally, in order to be developed the neural pathways which the brain has to develop in order to read easily, and to think clearly, reading and mathematics, are a natural brain training programs, proving effortless where mathematics are established clearly, and thoroughly, consistently utilising the fingers which are a mental/physical extension of the brain. To encourage the best results possible the child needs to work at exercises, which are never difficult, which are extended naturally from the initial finger recognition, three years of consistent but limited daily use, will establish perfect mathematics, permanently established, as a mental program/software available throughout the lifetime of the student.
Starting at three years of age learning to identify each finger separately as an item, moving through exercises which enable the child to visually complete addition and subtraction exercises at the rate of one a second, going on to understand place value perfectly, easily achieving rote perfect answers in times tables, but fully understanding the multiplication process itself. Abacus one is a perfect teaching tool, when it is accompanied by a perfect teaching program then perfect results are guaranteed,
This system of education will guarantee mathematic and reading ability on a universal basis allowing every child born to learn two languages, develop consistent brain ability through mathematics and chess, encouragement of typing ability and musical ability learnt from playing a piano will provide the basis for every child to make consistent academic progress to any levels which a child itself is inclined to reach,
Reading for both pleasure and knowledge acquisition is the perfect brain exercise, fully utilising the brain's natural ability to think as image in action.
Although clearly we can learn many things from films photographs and conversation, simply written technical information will forever be best achieved by reading.
:tourist: yes, just by reading the human mind is exorcising and developing itself.
Universal Education How I Think It Can Be Achieved - John Nicholson - 09-01-2007
COME ON HSBC YOU DESTROYED MY FARMING LIFE LETS WORK TOGETHER TO CHANGE THE FUTURE FOR MILLIONS OF CHILDREN
http://abacusone.net/ :blackadder:
MY VIEW IS THAT ONLY BIG BUSINESS CAN REALLY SHARPEN UP UNIVERSAL EDUCATION
AND THIS BANK SHOULD LEAD THE WORLD IN PROVIDING PRIMARY EDUCATION FACILITIES THEY HAVE FINANCIAL
AND TECHNICAL EXPERTISE
1. HSBC Holdings plc
With some 9,500 offices in 79 countries and territories and assets of US$983 billion at 30 June 2003, the HSBC Group is one of the world’s largest banking and financial services organisations.
2. HSBC Education Trust
The HSBC Education Trust, led by Dame Mary Richardson, was established in January 2001 to provide a focus for the Group’s educational projects in the UK, seeking to open doors of opportunity for children by raising standards of education and focuses on:
Primary and secondary education programmes for underprivileged children or for schools in economically deprived areas
Language programmes (particularly Mandarin)
Programmes to promote international understanding among young people
Programmes that encourage greater understanding of business and finance
Attitudinal education
ickly: OR unny: HSBC SHARPEN UP
Universal Education How I Think It Can Be Achieved - John Nicholson - 19-01-2007
:pcprob: consider what a simple system would mean to the third world
THE AIM OF ABACUS & ALPHABET
To build a universal system of teaching basic skills.
Applicable in any country in any conditions with virtually no facilities.
Starting with the question, what does Abacus One do?
It allows the child to transfer simple visual process in arithmetic into mental awareness easily.
It is foolproof.
Consistent daily use of abacus one effectively builds the neural pathways used in logical thinking and reading ability.
With the child’s own fingers we establish the count of ten.
Fingers first.
Creating the awareness of 10.
Rhythmic tapping ten.
Two initial exercises. The cat. With the twin kittens.
Learning the instant number and name of every finger.
One sum a second in adding fingers.
Transferring the concept of 10 fingers.
Transferring the concept of 10 fingers to the right-hand column of abacus one.
Transferring the concept of 10 into one counter in the centre column.
Transferring the concept of 10 times 10 into one counter on the left-hand column.
Abacus One is the child’s first personal computer.
The child finally transfers physical process to notation.
Abacus One is the child’s first personal computer, and until the child has established perfect mental arithmetic ability, only acquired by consistent practice, and demonstration both in and out of school. We use the abacus to reinforce perfection in counting every number to 100, and of course perfection in the times table which is slightly different, but perfection in the times tables creates the long-term memories for instant answers in mathematics for a lifetime.
Concentrated use of Abacus One from five to six years of age would normally expect the child to achieve an extremely high standard of mental arithmetic, and if consistent effort has been taken both within the school and the child’s own home, virtually all the times tables will be perfect, the child will be capable of doing sums in both addition and subtraction moving from the left to the right but initially as a counter working from the right to left.
Children need to be shown how to demonstrate Abacus One to each other, as well as working individually on test papers children can work successfully in pairs or small groups, bringing attention to different processes being used.
Teachers need to provide the child with worksheets which can be carried out as a preliminary homework situation, where the parents can assist the child easily to recognise what methods the child needs to utilise to do the sums.
The work sheets can be provided with and without answers, papers can be exchanged within the class in the mornings, where it is a simple matter to run throughout he marking. The child should be allowed two copies of the worksheet, in the early stages, where parents assist, and then child only.
:tourist: yes the child needs a maths map hammering home