I have a confession to make. I never learnt multiplication tables beyond the table of five when I was a kid. I grew up that way; never made the effort to remember multiplication tables. I loved mathematics but I hated tables and remembering them. My childhood friends and later colleagues remembered all of them. They did what the teachers asked them to do while they were quite young, rote that is. My teachers also pushed me to rote learn tables but I found no reason to do so. Instead, I chose the method of intrinsically adding up numbers in my mind and finding answers when I was encountered by a problem that required multiplication (tables). I had this thing in me always and it still persists. When I am convinced that I do not want something, I never do it. As for tables, I had a plausible explanation; I just hated them.
Recently, I, rather me and my wife, encountered a problem with our kid’s upbringing and education. He was asked everyday at school to memorize multiplication tables but he never did. He faced quite a bit of flak back at school and some other coming from his mother. I was seriously agitated by all this and I tried to “manipulate” my son into memorizing multiplication tables but he was so very stuck that he would not move beyond the tables of four or five which he kept forgetting. Somehow, he learnt to cope with this problem. He started crunching numbers inside his head and was able to add up good whenever he was assigned home or schoolwork comprising of problems and sums related to tables. He would add them up in his head just like me and that too in a jiffy. He scored very well in all the subjects and mathematics was no exception at all. So I supported his cause. I told his mother and informed his teachers not to force him to memorize tables since he can handle all matters related to multiplication without memorizing tables. If it takes him a little bit longer than the other students (who obviously are good at rote) to complete his work and if he, perhaps, does not fare well in the future when it comes to multiplication MCQ exams, I don’t mind and I am sure he too doesn’t mind.
I believe mathematics is a pure science and it holds more value in the applied field. People who believe in the application of mathematics to real life and prospectus thereof do not wander off into hypothetical parabolas and believe that mathematics should be conducted by the mind itself and not memory. I also believe that. Further, I believe that when I encounter problems which require tackling multiplication, it is better to shake up your grey matter a little and add up those numbers rather than parroting them in one’s stinky studies – it is like jogging for the mind. That’s for mathematics. I believe that all spheres of first education and then life in general should be understood rather than memorized. I never ever memorized things; I would always deal with them first hand. I learnt subjects like physics, chemistry and biology on my own when I was a student and did not care to pay too much attention to what the teachers were teaching because the teaching part confused me to an extent that I could never ever imbibe what was being taught. No, I am not saying that my teachers were not good enough or the rest of the class but rather that their methods of teaching were impractical. True, learning comes through first hand experiences and not hypothetical situations. So when I was taught photosynthesis in plants in my class I made it a point unto myself that I should experience it first hand and for that I undertook a little bit of research at my home and localities around and consulted some practical guides to science.
I was a student who was bent on learning concepts first hand and would not take the words of my teachers for anything. Whatever I was taught in class slipped my mind like ice cream on a steaming heating plate. I understood things on my own and that way my knowledge was applicable and not hypothetical without any substantive usage. My son has developed methods of his own, some of which are typically synonymous with my techniques and I did not teach him how it is all done. He is a volcano of creativity and while lying down on the couch and watching his favourite cartoons, he hastily stands up and starts chuckling to himself. This chuckling means that he was contemplating the plot for his new project while watching his cartoons. He gets to the task and within half an hour, he walks up to us, sporting his latest slingshot model or “prototype” for the future or some other creative oddity which leaves us dumbstruck. That’s creative energy unleashed without having to attend to the tedious and boring job of memorizing multiplication tables.
We have given our son the liberty to do things the way he wants to, even though we are a bit apprehensive about his formal (read deadening) education as we come from families and societies and schools which were so loaded with fear that we eventually lit a bonfire of our matriculation text and notebooks once the results were declared. Yes, we did that because we were so cornered with fear of studies since the pressures were mammoth, which crumpled the early and enjoyable years of our life. As for the multiplication tables, well, I and my son are on an equal footing. We won’t ever memorize them and that is our tribute to genuine comprehension.