In order to explore and develop the potentialities of the human brain fully, many physiologists and brain scientist have been studying ways to develop the function of the right brain further. UCMAS is the result of such research. It is the child education on mental arithmetic by image of Zhusan that solves the problem. Numerous examples prove that people who learn abacus Mental Arithmetic since childhood are more outstanding in intelligence, academics and overall behavior. In recent years with the spread of Abacus mental Arithmetic training across the world, more and more children join the classes and have improved their overall performance.

The cognitive theory Two famous scholars expound cognitive theory. One is J. Piaget a Swiss development physiologist and the other is J.S.Burner, American educational Psychologist.

Piaget traces the stages of intellectual development as follows: Sensor motor stage- Infants from newborn to two years old get their senses from the movement of their bodies.Pre operational stage-children from age two to seven begin to develop their thinking by using language, letters and pictures which are abstract symbols. They can learn simple letters, numbers and pictures at this stage. Formal operations Stage- Children above eleven are mature in their thinking. They can analyze by abstract formal logic. They can be taught abstract concepts as algebra and geometry.

As the consciousness of numbers is gradually developed in children from one and half to two year old, it should be strengthened. At this stage concrete item works as “teaching aids”. UCMAS use the abacus. Through constant exploration and practice the children get the concept of numbers. It is only a beginning with numbers. Soon, all the information is absorbed and processed faster in the mind. The learning of abacus helps the understanding of natural science because it has concrete string balls to help thinking. “The elevation of abacus” means the ability to calculate by concrete balls, the invisible imagery or formal calculator, which then reaches the level of mental arithmetic. The learning of abacus helps the understanding of natural science because it has concrete string balls to help thinking. “The Elevation of abacus” means the ability to calculate by concrete balls, the invisible imagery or formal calculator, which then reaches the level of mental arithmetic. The learning of abacus has the same process of cognitive theory, which emphasizes the mental development from the concrete to the conceptual, formal and symbolic.

The research on modern physiology and science of brain indicates that the brain of a 5 or 6-year-old child has reached the weight of 1200 kg making up 86% of the adult brain. At this time the child has approached the sensitive period of thinking in their receptivity, aural recognition of sound and flexibility of finger muscles. Therefore UC MAS works with children between 4 and 12 years.

At the end of the term, the children will improve academic performance, will increase speed and accuracy and will create a genius by discovering the power within.

Seventy teachers from the UC MAS Mental Arithmetic and Abacus Academy graduated from a six-month Premier Achievement mental MA arithmetic Program. They received their certificates from Deputy land and Co-operative Development Minister Dr Tan Kee Kwong at a graduation ceremony held at Hotel Maluri Value Inn in Taman Maluri, Kuala Lumpur, on Monday.
The course stressed on the basic principles of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, the calculation of continuous multiplication and division, integral substituted calculation, percentage calculation and square root and cube root calculation. Ten candidates passed with distinctions while Iriese Tan from the UC MAS Taman Kok Doh, Segambut, branch, was the top student with a 100% record.

She said she hoped to further improve her knowledge and techniques in abacus and mental arithmetic. Earlier at the ceremony, UC MAS chairman Ismail Mohd Yunos said the academy had over 3,000 students throughout the country while it was expanding to other countries like Thailand, Indonesia, China, India, Australia and Brunei.

“We’re confident that this franchising system will move on to other parts of the world,” he said. Adviser-cum-moderator Lin Ching Tang from Taiwan urged the graduates to strive to upgrade themselves and view the graduation as a beginning of a more challenging journey instead of an end.

He said they should cultivate a passion in abacus and mental arithmetic so that they could motivate their students to do the same.

For centuries, the abacus was the Chinese shopkeeper’s calculator, but which the advent of modern calculators and cash registers, it slowly disappeared from the business scene.

In the past few years, however, it seems to have made a comeback although not in its traditional environment. The abacus is now being used in education as a tool for enhancing mental ability especially in children.

“The science behind brain development links the right hand to the left side of the brain and vice versa. By using two hands, both sides of the brain can be developed easily.”

Keeping in mind that enhancing brain development is inextricably tied to age, Wong focused his research on children between the ages of 4 and 12 years old.

“According to experts, 75% to 85% of brain development occurs from birth to the age of 12,” he says.

It is for this reason that the children in this age group are the targets of the learning center.
“Children below 4 would be too difficult to handle as a group by the teachers at UCMAS and giving one on one lessons is not financially advisable,” says Wong.

At the moment, specially trained teachers at UCMAS guide groups of students on the two hands method of handling the abacus.

“There are some places in China where they use one hand and two fingers or three fingers. Some areas use two hands and four fingers or two hands and six fingers,” says Wong who introduced the two hands two fingers at UCMAS.

“This method is much easier for the children to learn. The simpler the better.”
Wong himself had to master this technique, and to do this he went for a course on learning the system in Beijing and Jilin. Believing that the two hands method will boost brain development and, by extension, mathematical aptitude in children all over the country, he is now slowly introducing it here, and seems to be making some progress.

“In Malaysia, we have over 300 UCMAS centers all over the country,” claims Wong adding that UCMAS, which is currently offering franchising opportunities, has successfully set up offices in various countries including India, Sri Lanka, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and New Zealand. The two hands technique of using the abacus is actually a step towards a higher level of calculation - mental arithmetic. The children at UCMAS first have to be very adept at physically using the abacus before they can move on to mental calculation. Mental arithmetic is connected to the ability to visualize.

“When the children are good, they don’t need to use the abacus any more, they can calculate mentally,” says Wong. Basically, the children are taught to picture the abacus in their minds. The figures that are to be calculated are visualized as beads on the abacus as opposed to numerals.

“A bead is a picture while a number is not. It is easier for them to visualize the bead and to calculate,” explains Wong, adding that this technique is effective in performing basic arithmetic such as addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication.

The method incorporates a “picture upon picture” concept. “The calculation overlaps – that means when one picture is in the mind, another picture is placed on the top,” says Wong who considers this to be one of the least painful ways for children to learn mental arithmetic.

“Our fastest children can mentally add 10 columns of 12 digit numbers within 30 seconds,” he says. “Normally, you won’t be able to even read the numbers in one minute,” Confident about the effectiveness of these techniques, Wong has tried to reach as many children as possible and is seeking to dispel the popular notion in Malaysia that only Chinese students are outstanding in Mathematics.

In May 2001, he says, Chinese, Malay and Indian students from UCMAS gave a 45 – minute demonstration of their skills to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad at Putrajaya. The demonstration was aimed at showing that students of all races, with the help of the right method, were capable of reaching very high standards in mental arithmetic. Between 1996 and 1998, UCMAS also went on TV to teach the method, says Wong.

“TV1 gave us a one – hour slot every Monday on Selamat Pagi Malaysia to teach on air.” Wong is hoping that the two hands abacus technique will one day be integrated into the formal education system in Malaysia and other countries, especially in today’s world where almost everything is based on science and technology.

"Mathematics is the foundation of science and calculation is the foundation of mathematics," says Wong Who himself enjoyed mathematics when he was in school.

Picking up any skill is an advantage in today's intensely competitive, dog-eat-dog world. Anxious parents, particularly expatriates, hunt around for activities in the UAE, to arm children with an extra edge in life. Often you have parents packing off their kids to various "classes" — swimming, ballet, karate, art, music, etc. All in the hope of an alternative to their favorite punching bag — terrible television.
A recent addition to this burgeoning extra-curricular activities package arrives in the UAE in the form of the Malaysian franchised system, the Universal Concept of Mental Arithmetic System or UCMAS. Brought to the UAE by an Abu Dhabi-based Indian expatriate Francis Almeida, this "skill development program." as it's termed by the promoters, revolves around mastering the art of mental arithmetic.

The UCMAS, however, is not so simple. It's not about learning to be a master in mental mathematics and does not end up being limited to conquering that old fear of mathematics. But the promoters and instructors insist that it is also about making the child use the brain to the maximum. All through our growing years, we hear this harangue about the futility of using just one side of our brain, be it the left or the right. And despite proof to the contrary, education systems in some countries continue to measure a child's intelligence by their academic results.

"In the UCMAS method," says R. Balasubramanian, general manager, marketing, of the Chennai-based UCMAS India, "it's not about rote learning or honing one side of the brain. It's about tapping the 'full potential' of the child."

"Participating in this method of study helps children realize their own potential and they would perform as if they have been pushed to the wall. There will be no 'I can't' in their vocabulary, just 'I can'," points out Balasubramanian.

The UCMAS method, originally founded in China, employs the ancient, yet universally renowned, manual gadget — the abacus — the rectangular shaped instrument lined with vertical rods fitted with beads.

What it does is essentially teach the children to become skilled in rapid mental mathematics with the help of the abacus beads at first. This is done through memorizing a visual through the abacus as a mathematical sum. This concept of thinking in pictures leads to clearer thinking and an enhanced memory. The UCMAS concept prides itself on promoting the right side of their brain in their promotional literature. But as Dino Wong, managing director of UCMAS Holdings, Malaysia, who was in Abu Dhabi recently to train the UCMAS course instructors, points out, skeptics may raise the issue that calculation, logic, analysis and math revolves around the left side of the brain. To that he says the emphasis is not on numbers. Instead, he explains that the crucial difference here is that the numbers are memorized as visuals. It's another matter that the visual is converted into a number and the child works out the mathematical configurations mentally. Ultimately the child uses the left and right side of the brain, admits Wong. This is the basis of UCMAS learning.

• Nearly 300,000 children in countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Switzerland, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, Kuwait, South Africa and Qatar are learning UCMAS. India has nearly 20,500 children learning the UCMAS in 362 centers. R. Balasubramanian, general manager, marketing, of the Chennai-based UCMAS India, admits that it took them more than two years to get UCMAS popular because people earlier were deterred by the idea that it was a mathematics program. But as promoters and teachers reiterate, it's about handing the children another skill on their plate to tackle life better.

A look at the system which claims to improve a child’s memory and thought process.

The UCMAS method of improving the child’s memory and speed in thinking rests on the ancient tool – the abacus. (Remember, playing with this bead instrument to learn your rudimentary math as a child?) For the first six months of the program the child is familiarized and made to operate the abacus. The beads on the abacus represent numbers and the central and the vertical rods provide additional value to the beads.

Basically, the movement of the beads (see illustration on Page 2) towards the central beam on a particular rod forms a picture and simultaneously a mathematical value. The association of the value or amount with the image of the bead formation on the abacus is imprinted into the child’s mind. “The key in learning the UCMAS lies in practicing on the abacus,” admits Wong.
Flash cards are used to enhance the visuals and help them memorize the pictures. By the end of the program they have 450,000 images stored in their memory.

Once they perfect their ability to recall these images and convert them into numbers, they are ready to attempt problems mentally with the help of the abacus- and without it after some time. It’s possible to learn addition, subtraction, multiplication, exponents, factors and percentage on the abacus, Wong claims.

There’s one more skill that is developed as they learn the UCMAS. Using both hands to rapidly work on the abacus helps children to improve their motor skills, says Wong. Moreover, their skill of picking up the “visual” aspects and process them improves, while mental math only perks up their concentration and hearing.

During the training of the UCMAS course instructors in Abu Dhabi, two children from Malaysia were given long complex problems to calculate. And, the children holding two-miniature abacus in their hands, moved the beads around rapidly, and in a flash gave the right answer.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE

Children in the age group of 4 to 12 years are the target of the program, which will be available to parents from centers in Abu Dhabi and Dubai-franchised by the UAE UCMAS corporate office in the La Marquise building on the Hamdam and Salam Street junction in Abu Dhabi.

The different centers will house classrooms where a maximum of 12 to 15 children will participate in each class. Children have to undergo nearly 8 levels before completing the program, starting from basic to grand level. This is done over a period of 30 months, which involves the child taking a two-hour class once a week, with each level lasting three months. In addition, the child has to practice for 15 minutes every day for the rest of the six days of the week. At the end of each level, the child has to pass an examination to qualify for the next level. The cost of the program works out to Dh250 a month, apart from a one-time registration fee of Dh250. The registration fee entitles the child to an abacus, the program books, t-shirt, a bag and information booklets.

The adage ‘old is gold’ has been further authenticated in the case of the Chinese abacus, developed around 500 BC. Being used by UCMAS (Universal Concept of Mental Arithmetic System), Malaysia, as a modern representation of the ancient art of mental math, it has been introduced in Mumbai, India.

The UCMAS philosophy is based on research of brain science. It is being taught in many prominent schools, covering over 5,000 students. Parents have seen profound results. Says Swaroop Bendre;”My daughter has been doing UCMAS since nine months and I have seen a considerable improvement in her academic performance, along with her concentration level being increased. She has also developed a liking for math.” Parents have also noticed children preferring the abacus to watching television and a general rise in confidence levels.