![]() Let's look at a very simple addition to see how it works on the abacus: Let's add 4 +3.Īfter bringing the abacus in its starting position you begin with displaying the first number, the 4 in our case. ![]() The 5 beads in the lower deck of the second column from the right each have the potential value 10, the 2 beads in the upper deck of the second column from the right each have the potential value 50, the 5 beads in the lower deck of the third column from the right each have the potential value 100 and so on.Īnd as soon as you move a bead you actually give it its value. The 2 beads in the upper deck of that column each have the potential value of 5. Here each bead has the potential value 1. We start with the 5 beads in the lower deck of the column the farthest to the right. ![]() The five beads of each colum of the lower deck together have the same potential value as one of the 2 beads of each colum of the corresponding upper deck. In its start position or when it shows 0, the beads in the lower deck are all moved down while the beads in the upper deck are all moved up. It has several colums with 5 beads on each column of the lower deck and 2 beads on each colum of the upper deck. It is a fully working abacus so you can try out all the examples we will be looking at! Look at the abacus and play around with it. This is not what we want to see.The value of the beads and how to read numbers from the abacus If everything that is listed as world cultural heritage hopes to find itself in schools, and are also made compulsory courses, they may trigger students' resentment, instead of love and respect for these aspects of their own culture. It can also be well protected by museums and cultural centers. Indeed, zhusuan is a cultural heritage with a lot of value, but whether it should be brought back into the classroom is something that needs further discussion.Īs a practical technique, zhusuan does not need to be brought back into the classroom, but as a cultural artifact that should be handed down between generations. Many people criticized the decision to remove zhusuan from the primary school curriculum around 10 years ago, and suggested that schools reinstate the course. Its inclusion on the world intangible cultural heritage list offers an opportunity for people to have a new understanding of this old calculating method and to further protect and develop it. However, as part of the cultural heritage of China, zhusuan should be protected. Wang Yaofeng ( China Youth Daily): As an important invention, the abacus is also known as the "most ancient computer." It seems to be unavoidable that the abacus will give way to modern digital calculators and thus be marginalized and even abandoned by modern society. In turn, such improvements can help them perform better at school. This technique is believed to be able to develop students' concentration and retentivity as well as other measures of intellectual acuity. Currently, around 2 million children are learning zhusuan. ![]() Research proves that zhusuan can help develop children's intelligence. However, with the development of digital calculators, it is rarely used today. Wang Chaocai (): Zhusuan is an old method of calculating, and it can be helpful when solving some modern math problems. However, others argue that while preserving zhusuan is important, this does not mean it needs to be taught in schools. This is said to be the best way to protect such a precious cultural artifact. Since zhusuan was announced as a world intangible cultural heritage, some have begun to advocate teaching the use of the abacus in primary schools again. However, the popularity of zhusuan has waned since the emergence of digital calculators. For a long time, zhusuan was still taught to primary school students, and the practice is still in use in many rural marketplaces. Zhusuan used to be a basic skill that all financial workers in China would have known. Zhusuan was also officially listed as a UNESCO intangible cultural heritage on December 4, 2013. It is regarded as the fifth invention in Chinese history and was listed as a national intangible cultural heritage by the Chinese Government in 2008. Zhusuan can be traced back to more than 2,500 years ago. It includes performing simple sums such as addition and subtraction, or far more complex operations including exponential multiplication. Zhusuan is the name given to the techniques used on a Chinese abacus.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |