Magic In Numbers – Retired teacher’s ‘Mathematical Chess’ teaches grapes of math

A bird sat on the bough of a tree, we nested on that tree in the monsoon season, one of us flew away in the mango season, half of us went away on harvest time for no reason, summer came and some left us alone. How many are we now? A math poem like the above from the audio collection penned and prepared by Mercy Peter is sure to have hit the headlines if the innovative math teacher were to launch her audio CD and other math manipulative in the US.

But India’s educational red tape took long to comprehended the problem Mercy is saying – that mathematics does not have to be taught in chalk and talk method and solving mathematical problems can be as fun as a computer game. Mercy Peter’s mathematical chess, a fun board game won Indian government’s National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) award.

The 64-year old retired math teacher was in Kuwait recently to visit her two sons, Sony in Mangaf and Dony in Jleeb. Math chess is developed keeping in mind slow learners and fast learners, said Mercy, now a busy workshop presenter. There are 101 squares on the board designed by Mercy constituting positive and negative numbers from 0 to 50. “The slow learners can play with the positive numbers and the fast trackers can explore with the negative numbers,” said Mercy elucidating the game on the computer. The players choose numbers at random or by lot and place the numbers on the respective boxes on the board. The one who gets the highest number begins the play.

If that number is 50, see what 2 numbers are multiplied to get 50. It is up to the player to choose the equation: 25 x 2; 10 x 5; or 50 x 1. Step 2 is adding the 2 numbers together. If 10 x 5 is taken, add these numbers and the counter /token is moved to the square on the board where 15 is written. When the next player reaches 15 with his token by another equation, the first player is out. That is, when the second player who has the card 36 declares 12 x 3 as the equation, then the counter is moved to 15, overpowering the earlier counter. Number 54- holder can beat the former two by formulating a 9 x 6 equation. Between 2 players the loss or win can be counted in points. But if there are many players, showing the way out should be quicker, said Mercy. “When I first demonstrated the game, I named it Product and Sum. But many called it as chess, and I gave it a score,” said Mercy.

The game was later made into a digital format where an individual can play with the computer. “Remember, if you do away with math, math will avoid you.

The best way to learn math is to like it”, said Mercy. “After our father’s death in 1991, mom has been crazy about math”, said Sony Francis, Mercy’s eldest son. Sony is an engineer with KNPC and a famous percussionist. We want our mom to stay with us in Kuwait since she is alone back home, said a concerned Sony, who is busy as a drum player in most of Indian expat stage concerts. Sony narrated a recent event that underlined his concern. “Mom gave the job of a home caretaker to a lady she met at a church. The caretaker won the trust and we were also happy. But as affirming as a newspaper story, the lady stole mom’s gold jewellery and disappeared. Mom was sure of the culprit as no one else had visited her.

She discussed the matter with the police and tried a ploy. Mom called the lady as if nothing had happened and lured her to our house. When she came, she was arrested”. “Her calculations were accurate”, stated the happy son. Thanks to mathematics, added Mercy.