SOLVING MORE
THAN 100 MATH
PROBLEMS IN 15
MINUTES:
TAJIK MATHLETES TAKE HOME PRIZES AT INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION
by Hannah Denys
I
n a giant auditorium in eastern
Kyrgyzstan, 628 children sat in neat
rows. Their chatter filled the room
until the announcer let the eager
competitors know the math competi-
tion was about to begin.
“We were nervous and excited,” said one
competitor. “But our teacher told us, ‘Don’t
be nervous. Even if you don’t place, you
should be proud.’”
Among the competitors were 18 students
from Khorog, a remote town in Tajikistan.
Theirs was the first Tajik team ever
to compete at this event. But the chance
to represent their country at the competition
almost didn’t happen.
Months ahead of the competition, the
students were looking for someone to help
them with travel expenses. It takes about
12 hours to get from Khorog to the airport
in Tajikistan’s capital. And after flying to
Kyrgyzstan, they would have to take a five-
hour drive to the competition site. The
students needed help. Fortunately, Central
26 | JOURNEY OF HOPE
Asia Institute Tajikistan was able to cover
their travel expenses for the long journey
from Khorog to Kyrgyzstan, as well as their
accommodations.
The team included 15 girls and three
boys, with some competitors as young as 6
years old. Many of them, including some of
the older children, had never traveled out-
side of Khorog before. The whole experi-
ence was new for them. Yet, they mustered
their courage to compete against hundreds
of other children for prizes and the honor
of their country.
The students knew winning wouldn’t be
easy. They would have to solve 130 arith-
metic problems in 15 minutes. And there’s
a catch: this was a Mental Math competi-
tion, meaning they’d have to do the prob-
lems in their head. No pencil, no paper, and
no calculator. In Mental Math, the children
are the calculators.
Mental Math, or abacus-based mental
calculation as it is sometimes called, re-
quires students to imagine an abacus and
perform split-second calculations in their
heads by mentally manipulating the beads.
It might seem crazy to use a 4,000-year old
tool to revolutionize today’s math classes,
but the technique is catching on all around
the world.
There are even professional Mental Math
competitions. In one such event, Japanese
champion Takeo Sasano was able to add
15 three-digit numbers in just 1.7 seconds.
While these students weren’t quite that fast,
they were still very impressive.
The announcer blew a whistle over the
loudspeaker and the competition began.
Small hands waved in the air and mouths
silently worked out the problems. To an
outsider, it might look chaotic, but the
children were working methodically, each
picturing an abacus in his or her mind
and mentally moving the beads to perform
calculations.
(Visit centralasiainstitute.org/mentalmath
to see a video of the mathletes competing.)
CENTRAL ASIA INSTITUTE