Aside from love, something else makes the world go round. Whether your favorite subject is Arithmetic or not, humans cannot escape numbers. Our lives are synonymous with numbers. Numbers rule our world, not love.
The minute the sperm meets the egg and you are conceived, counting starts.
To the mother:
1. When did you have sex? August 12 or 8/08.
2. When was your last period?
3 When are you due? (9 months)
4. Is that your first baby?
5. Ilang pounds?
6. Ilang ang daliri? Paa? 10 + 10?
7. First birthday
8. Height, weight?
The minute we wake up,
1. What time is it?
2. What time did I fall asleep last night?
3. I have a Zoom meeting at 9 am.
4. Your husband skips rice because he wants to bring down his weight to 185 pounds.
5. He’s been on a diet for 3 months.
6. What is the dollar to pesos rate today? 50.95?
7. I need $1,000 to pay for my credit card bill that is due on October 28.
8. Our maids’ passports would be released on November 17 at 2 pm.
9. How much is the salary of our new labandera?
and so on…
Before my kids reached 21 years old, we dealt with millions of questions involving numbers.
1. What time is her classes?
2. What time shall we pick her up in the afternoon?
3. How many classmates are coming to her birthday party?
4. How much is the tuition fee increase?
Anong oras na? Anong channel? Anong Zoom password? Ilan ang speakers? Kailan ang flight natin? Ilan na ang covid infections? Magkano ang bill? Meron na ba yang service charge? Maglalagay pa ba tayo ng dagdag na tip? Sige kasi dalawang beses tayo humingi ng tubig. Sinkwenta.
There is a reason why arithmetic is taught in kindergarten and nursery. There is a reason why we should know how to count, Every day, every person big or small, young and old, rich or poor, deal with numbers. I must emphasize the importance of knowing our numbers.
It is a mortal sin for any adult not to be able to do basic mathematics without the aid of a calculator.
My husband is mad at me because he thinks I should not expect people to know how to compute because we are now living in the age of technology.
I do not buy that argument. We go to the groceries, restaurants, palengke. What if you need to do simple addition or subtraction and your cellphone is not with you?
You don’t need to be able to answer 10,498 x 3, I cannot either, but I expect you to answer 10 x 3.5 correctly.
I recently interviewed one of our employees. One of his functions is to compute the SSS, payslips, etc. He does this once a month a few days before the SSS filing. I asked how is he able to make sure that his computation is correct. He has excel daw but he gets confused with the Excel formula so he computes with the aid of a calculator. This is a red flag because for ten months hindi pa nya alam mag gamit ng Excel.
I also don’t know Excel but my job doesn’t require me to compute payslips.
He is a business graduate and he’s been with us for 10 months.
I don’t know but I just gave him random numbers to mentally compute. I honestly expected that he would be able to answer them easily. A grade six student should be able to get the answers right. I wasn’t testing his mathematical skills. I just wanted to know he can compute. My intention was to ask one question only.
1. Me— “Medyo nahihirapan ka daw mag compute ng percentages?”
“Hindi mam”
Me—- “Mabuti. So ano ang percentage ng 5 over 10 (5/10)?”
His answers were:
“3”, after a few seconds he changed his answer to 5, then his final answer was “Two to three percent”.
Ennngggg, is he another Helen?
Reminder: Math is an exact science.
Medyo I didn’t expect him to miss the answer. Siguro nalito lang sya so let’s try again.
2. Me— “Ano ang percentage ng one over 2?” (1/2)
He answered 1%.
Since he wasn’t able to answer correctly again, I have to give him another chance, hoping he would be able to get it right,
3. “How about ten over 20?” (10/20)
He said “five…. ay… 10 %”
Maybe my questions were too difficult so I made it a lot simpler.
Me—- “Fifty is what percentage of 100?”
He answered correctly “50%”.
Me—- “very good. Kalahati.”
I found my question too elementary, parang pang grade 3 so I asked him another question.
Me—– “What is the percentage of three over 10 (3/10)?”
He answered “Mga 2.5%”.
Remember my dear citizens of the world, arithmetic is an exact science.
By this time I already knew his weakness but a part of me wanted him to be able to prove to me that he could answer simple math. My last question was:
“2.5 x 3?”
He answered “Eight, 8 something…. 7… or 8”.
I told him that the correct answer is 7.5.
2.5 plus 2.5 equals 5 plus 2.5 = 7.5.
Last question na alam ko super easy for a college graduate:
“Kung maraming-marami kang pera, kung merong kang 50,000 pesos at gusto mong bigyan equally ang 4 friends mo, tigmagkakano sila?”
In less than one minute, he was able to answer 12,500 for each person.
Yehey! Tumpak!
