First desi winner in competition’s 31 years.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: Indian American youngster Aditya Sriram has won SuperMath, a San Francisco-based math competition for grade-school children, becoming the first desi winner in the annual competition’s 31-year history.
Just 11 years old, Sriram beat out nearly 200 students in the mental math, abacus-based competition that is split into beginner and intermediate levels. Sriram was awarded the Grand Champion award, and in the process, became the first winner in ten years who is not yet in high school.
In the beginner level of the competition, the children use an abacus to compute simple addition and subtraction problems. The children in the intermediate level use the abacus, as well as mental math, to solve more complicated addition, subtraction, and multiplication problems. The competition also has a third level, advanced, for even older participants; competitors this year ranged from those in pre-kindergarten to adults.
On their website, the SuperMath organization talks about why they want kids to use an abacus in the digital age of calculators and cell phones: “Through instruction, SuperMath students are taught to “map” images, rather than to process each information (i.e. each digit) one at a time. Imaging techniques are also used in speed-reading techniques. The advantage of SuperMath is that it will train students to “map” images, rather than to sequentially process each information. SuperMath’s training will literally introduce a whole new way of “looking” at numbers and other information.â€
The program offers abacus-based mental calculation classes, with their own curriculum and textbooks. SuperMath is completely abacus-based, and all mental calculations are done through the visualization of the abacus beads in the student’s minds via a process called “mapping.”
Sriram is a dedicated SuperMath student. The organization gives tutoring classes for students to improve their math skills, in a way similar to Kumon, and Sriram was taking classes in Santa Clara. When he and his family moved up north, to Bellevue, Washington, SuperMath created its first-ever Skype program, helping Sriram with math through video chatting.
Now, he gets to bring home a trophy to boast about his math skills. His family, including his younger brother, flew into San Francisco to watch Sriram compete in and win the SuperMath competition.
To contact the author, email to deepakchitnis@americanbazaaronline.com