A British woman, Dr. Mantri, growing up in India started to notice his son, Dhruv, was struggling with simple arithmetic when he was in fifth-grade. After noticing this, she started employing an abacus (算盘) to help her son visually comprehend mathematics.
"I would ask him something like 35 minus 13 and he couldn't do it." said Dhruv's mom Dr. Mantri. "I decided to change the way he looked at numbers," she said. "An abacus is a tried and tested method, and the Egyptians used them for building the pyramid." In just six days he started to show progress with the abacus and would go on to become a whizz kid with numbers, with even his classmates' parents reaching out for help.
She never thought she would teach her son using an abacus, which she used as a child in India and it was always helpful. Within six days she started to notice a difference and see results. So dramatic was the turnaround, that school staff asked him to perform with the abacus at an assembly, where some parents even came to ask for advice on using it for their kids.
IT specialist Dr. Mantri said the humble abacus can be used for calculations into the trillions and kids enjoy learning on it because it's like a game. "It becomes a playing tool for younger children, for it feels like a game. I think the success comes because children can touch and feel an abacus and visualize them." She added.
By the age of 12, Dhruv was giving online cyber security seminars and is now pursuing a career in data science and analytics. Dhruv has now landed an apprenticeship (实习) at an international firm. During the four-year apprenticeship, he will spend one day a week studying Data Science and Artificial Intelligence at Glasgow Caledonian University. "He is so confident now and I am so proud," she said, with Dhruv adding "I don't think my teachers would have guessed that I would be following a career in data science at that time."
