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Since its release in February, Professor Kageyama’s Maths Training has helped many a Nintendo DS owner in nailing down the 1-2-3s of basic arithmetic. The game’s namesake, Hideo Kageyama, took a few moments to talk with us about his method for helping people learn maths.
Nintendo of Europe: Professor Kageyama, could you please introduce yourself to our readers?
Hideo Kageyama: I’m a professor at Ritsumeikan University and also the headmaster of Ritsumeikan Elementary School, located in Kyoto, the 1200-year-old former capital of Japan. I’m also a member of the Central Education Council and was a member of the Education Rebuilding Council of the Japanese Ministry of Education. The former decides the content to be taught in Japan’s schools, while the latter is involved with setting the future course of Japanese education.
NOE: Your ‘Kageyama Method’ is famous throughout Japan. Could you explain what the method involves?
HK: Certainly. Until now, most education methods have been about what to teach children and how to teach it to them, based on their existing abilities. The Kageyama method is different - it starts by directly training the child’s ability and using that ability as a foundation for further improvement.
My classes have been observed by many people, including the Japanese Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology . They have also been reported on many times in the media. Thanks to this exposure, my book of maths drill exercises has sold millions of copies in Japan; that’s about as many copies as there are elementary school students in Japan!
It is of course also very important that children practise a healthy lifestyle - it is important to go to bed early, get up early in the morning and always eat breakfast. It has been established that going to bed too late has a negative impact on the healthy development of children’s brains. I believe that getting one’s daily lifestyle in order protects one’s essential vitality, and that this can have a profound effect on children’s learning ability.
Does basic repetition train ability? Well, I think that the Kageyama method can be compared to weight training. These days, sports would not be possible without weight training. The potential of an athlete is limited only by the level of their basic ability. I have simply used Hundred Cell arithmetic exercises and kanji exercises (kanji being the Chinese characters that are the core of the Japanese language) to show that mastery of arithmetic and language could increase children’s overall learning ability. By doing this, children could become more interested in experimenting with and understanding many different things, giving them a ravenous intellectual curiosity. These benefits help you throughout your entire life.
NOE: How is the Kageyama method implemented in Professor Kageyama’s Maths Training?
HK: Of the so-called ‘three elementary skills’ (reading, writing and arithmetic), Professor Kageyama’s Maths Training focuses on arithmetic. Starting with the most basic level of becoming familiar with the numbers one to ten, the game explains the four basic arithmetic skills (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) that they will learn in school up to the age of ten, level-by-level and at their own pace. For example, ‘Hundred Cell Calculation’ and division problems with remainders are both included. These drills train the brain and the children’s basic calculation ability.
These exercises also put an emphasis on speed, tempo and timing. The problems appear on screen in quick succession, and players answer them in keeping with a certain tempo. Keeping the timing of the problems in sync with the player’s achievement level, the difficulty is gradually increased. In this way, the brain is able to focus on the task of solving the arithmetic problems and is trained up in the same way as muscles are with weight training. Increasing the speed is the most important part of this.
NOE: What age of child do you think will benefit most from the software?
HK: I think it can be helpful for all children of six or older. The program can help them learn level-by-level at their own pace and train the basic abilities that they need to master by the age of ten. Each exercise takes between one and three minutes to complete, so I’ve heard of cases where Japanese elementary school students, and even junior high students, are using the software to warm-up their brains and revise arithmetic before their morning classes.
NOE: In what ways can the software spur learning?
HK: One of the major benefits of using the software is the ability to play together with all your friends and classmates and experience a new and exciting learning method. Excitement makes you focus more, so you can really increase the learning effects of the software this way. Or if a child is stuck on, for example, the multiplication problem ‘98 x 67’, you can check which stage of the problem is causing difficulty and focus on covering that area. In this case, it may appear that the child is unable to perform multiplication, but they may in fact be having problems with performing carrying in additions such as ‘6 + 9’ or ’8 + 8’, and this is why they are unable to master multiplications like ‘7 x 8’ or ‘6 x 9’.
Using Professor Kageyama’s Maths Training, children can train intensively on areas of arithmetic like carrying, helping them have some additional maths training at home apart from what they have already learned in school.
NOE: Could you ever imagine that so many adults would use Maths Training?
HK: I was actually really surprised to see that drill exercises designed for children were being bought and used by adults for training their calculation skills. For instance, some people like to perform some Hundred Cell Calculation exercises before tackling a difficult task at work because they think that it enables them get through it more easily once they’ve ‘warmed up their brain’. The most important thing is to have fun while keeping the exercises up every day.
NOE: What is the arithmetic practice method used in Professor Kageyama’s Maths Training?
HK: It’s a really simple method where you add, subtract or multiply numbers that are arranged along the top and left sides of a 10 x 10 grid. In this Hundred Cell Calculation mode, you can choose to play the same grid or get a new grid every time, but I recommend using the same grid over and over. Solving the same problems every day will have a better training effect. It works the same way as a track-and-field athlete trying to beat their time for a certain distance. Maybe it took three minutes to complete the grid today, and today it only takes two minutes and 45 seconds, so tomorrow’s goal is two minutes and 30 seconds….
Seeing your own improvement in the exercises from day-to-day gives you a better confidence in your abilities, and that confidence is good for your ability to learn, not just arithmetic but in all fields. For children, feeling oneself get better and better nourishes a sense of self-affirmation. Children up to the age of eight should try to work on one grid until they are able to complete that Hundred Cell Calculation grid in around two minutes and 30 seconds and, for children older than that, in one minute and 30 seconds. By doing that, they not only work on their basic arithmetic skills but also train their brain up just like a muscle. Once they achieve these targets, changing the grid is a good way to keep up the pace they have reached.
NOE: Do you have a message for European users of the software?
HK: It makes me very happy that exercises developed in Japan, including the Hundred Cell Calculation and Division Marathon methods, will be put to good use by users in Europe. But I must also take this opportunity to give proper credit to the incredibly talented educators who originally developed these teaching methods - Hiroshi Kishimoto for the Hundred Cell method and Shunichi Miki for the Division Marathon (Hard) method.
I would love to have users experience the fun of learning together with this software.
NOE: Finally, Professor, can you tell us anything about Mathy? Is he a personal friend of yours?
HK: Yes, he agreed to co-star along with me in this software. But I’ve never actually met him! I hear that he comes from Greece. Rumour has it that if you want to meet him you should go to Athens... I’d certainly love to meet him someday!
Professor Kageyama’s Maths Training is in shops now, only on Nintendo DS.
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