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I first became aware that there must be a faster way of doing math than what was being taught in school when attending a class at the University of Alabama. My calculus teacher would stand back from the board, pause a moment, and say “…and that would be -“.  It’s funny looking back now that though we were amazed he could do this, no one asked him how he did it.

Later I saw another example of fast math when I took a date from my psychology class to a magic show. After people with calculators were called on to the stage to check his answers, the magician got people from the audience to call out numbers for him to multiply in his head. He always spoke the answer before the problem could be entered in the calculators. After also demonstrating very impressive memory tricks, he told the audience something that I found amazing- that he had only finished high school and did not consider himself smart. He said he sought out and learned techniques that made it all possible.

After this I sought out but found little information in local libraries about doing fast math. Convinced that there was another, faster way to get math answers I became angry that the educational system did not teach something so important. How many tests had I taken in which time ran out before I could finish and check all the answers? I vowed to share any techniques I might learn with anyone interested.

Several years later in Atlanta, Georgia I finally got my start when I stumbled across a copy of “The Trachtenberg Speed System Of Basic Mathematics”, printed in 1960, at a used book sale. Since then I have found other books and also ideas on the internet that have helped me in my examination of math relationships. I give here what I consider the most useful of what I have found. It should help you to be successful enough in math that you will make observers who have not sought for it sit up and wonder.  (Like I did!)

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“If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything is going to get a lick.” That is a phrase  that often comes to mind when I think of the one way students are taught to multiply. I understand and support the argument that it would be confusing to most kids to be taught a lot of different procedures to do math early on. They need to learn the basics well. However, there are times when some students are eager for more. At the same time other students don’t want to know more. Their experience with math has been like training in a flea circus- they’ve bumped their heads on their limits so much that they feel defeated and unmotivated, and their failures have effectively trained them to no longer try. A person’s attitude approaching a problem is important, as evident in this quote by British mathematician John Baines: “The first step toward the solution of any problem is optimism”.  Sometimes it takes showing a neat trick or two along the way to “prime the pump” of interest and capability.  With encouragement, appropriate tools, and practice any student can learn to like and excel in math.

It is worth mentioning that techniques to help with math should be practiced and learned before it is necessary to use them. Once, to help me remember all the facts for a big test, I used precious study time reading a book that a friend recommended called “The Memory Book” by Harry Lorraine and Jerry Lucas. Though this book has become extremely helpful over time, it didn’t help studying for that test. In my test preparations my mind wasn’t properly focused on the subject but on the struggle to handle information in unfamiliar and often awkward ways.  I should have put all my effort on studying in a more focused manner. What I learned from this was that to be useful, techniques for memory (or math) must be learned and ready to use before there is a need for them.

Review and practice these techniques to make make them your own. Actions requiring effort become reflexive (like an afterthought) after enough practice. In football practice you are taught that to cut right or left quickly you plant the opposite foot and push in the direction you want to go. This process involves deliberate thinking and stumbling at first, and then you get the hang of it and execute it to great benefit without thinking. Likewise, a tricky pattern or beat on the guitar or drums may take days of practice to get down, but then it becomes natural. You just do it, with added skill and confidence. Practice to make math techniques not an effort but an afterthought. How successful you are learning and using the math techniques I give is up to you!