HISTORY
HISTORY of the 1990 pioneering “INVENTION” of the 1-HR. RHYME-, STORYLINE– and NUMERACY-based TIMES TABLE MASTERY instruction strategy, TIMES TABLE TRICKS® ( far more detail than you would probably care to consider ):
“THE PRIZE, THE PROBLEM”:
Mastery of the Multiplication Table has been the sole portal to all math skills beyond simple Addition and Subtraction since the dawn of history. Difficulty in mastering the Times Table is the preeminent cause of a crippling legacy in mathematics throughout life for a great many people from time immemorial. Nothing else so definitively sets the stage for a grinding disintegration of a child’s enthusiasm for math or math based opportunities in life than the arduous drudgery of mastering the “Times Table” by all traditional methods prior to 1990.
“THE AGELESS INTERMINABLE INEFFICACY”:
Throughout the ages — continuing up to the present (and for the foreseeable future until the indifference of the nation’s education “leadership” finally yields to the nation’s collective parental demands rising as “one voice”) — the “state of the art” teaching the Times Table in U.S. classrooms has been — and, sadly, will continue to be — (1) “flash cards” (electronic or otherwise) and (2) “Skip Counting”. Both procedures are fraught with the disadvantages of: (1) boredom, (2) long acquisition-times (months, years and sometimes never), (3) “facts” being easily forgotten and (4) “facts” easily confused with one another. In the case of Skip Counting there is the additional disadvantage of the necessity of keeping track of the number of iterations passed in order to know when to stop. Any one of these debilitating disadvantages is hopelessly archaic and simply not used by any practitioner in any math-based profession. Yet, virtually without exception, this still represents, today, the de facto default “state of the art” persistently used by elementary classrooms and home-school programs nationwide.
At Last — the “ULTIMATE SOLUTION”:
In the Spring of 1990 — for the first time in recorded history — the “need” for this arduously disappointing state of affairs changed forever — a “Renaissance” was born. On a Spring Saturday afternoon in 1990 in Anchorage, Alaska — inspired by the immediate success in a 2 hr. “brainstorming” trial-and-error session with little “Tina P.” — “Mr.B” (Benjamin B. Hughes) realized he had just invented a RHYME-, STORYLINE- and NUMERACY-based “Thematically Meaningful” Cartoon Mnemonic method for Rapid Mastery of the Times Table in only a couple of hours which ever since has demonstrated unprecedented efficacy for (a) children of very young age, (b) children labeled as “learning disabled /at risk” as well as (c) “mainstream” classroom children — all mastering the Times Table in a matter of a few hours at most, with exceedingly high retention. ( Please see the FULL-Letterhead Testimonial and Newspaper Article Library. ) These results dwarf, in every category (rapidity of acquisition, long-term retention and sheer “fun”), every technique Mr.B — or any educator with whom Mr.B had ever communicated — had seen, heard or read about, nor did he find any such method listed in the definitive authoritative catalogue of all books in print as listed in Bowker’s Books In Print in 1990 — or the next year, 1991. Therefore, evidently his was the first federally registered proprietary strategy — “created specifically for the education market” — using the Rhyme-, Storyline- and Numeracy-based Cartoon Mnemonic Method of teaching the Times Table, and listed in this collective authoritative compendium, Bowker’s Books in Print.
“CONFIRMATION”:
In pilot classes in the Spring of 1990 the power of the method was so revolutionary that word quickly spread of Mr.B’s free pilot demo classes (serving as a kind of “focus group” assessment) convincing him that he had, indeed, discovered an immensely valuable pedagogical gem, and he decided to “patent” the method but he was informed by his friend (inventor) that he should Copyright, not patent. As mentioned, checking with R.K.Bowker’s Books in Print at the time, he saw no evidence of any written title suggestive of a Cartoon Mnemonic method of teaching the Times Table so Mr.B filed for, and received, a 1991 Copyright for his Rhyme- and Storyline-based Cartoon Mnemonic Times Table strategy (a computer-printout version). (By 1994 he finally raised enough money to fund the self-published saddle-stitched glossy-cover 4-color book version which was then the basis of his 1994 — again in 1995 — updated Copyright, with 2 copies submitted to the Library of Congress according to protocol.)
“THE FIRST” U.S. SCHOOL DISTRICT ACCLAIM :
Later in that same year of his federally registered Copyright (1991), while visiting his mother during the Thanksgiving/Christmas holiday season in his boyhood hometown of Salt Lake City, Utah, Mr.B contacted the largest school district in Utah (at that time, Granite School District, Salt Lake City) and was invited to give a demonstration of the method to a group of administrators the following day. His hope, of course, was that the school district would be suitably impressed enough with the method’s remarkable power to express interest in licensing his method (the actual publication, by intent, would be on his own despite what would soon be the district’s kind offer to publish his method and pay him royalties).
His presentation was met with a robust round of applause and the lead administrator abruptly requested him to demonstrate the method to the Director of Curriculum. As a result of this demonstration, the original lead administrator asked for a further 2-day demonstration at selected schools to observe its results with “challenging” classrooms in-the-field. As a result of all of the foregoing, Mr.B accepted the district’s offer to be flown down (from Alaska) after the holidays and to be paid $2,000 for a two-week intensive demonstration for the administration to observe the impact of the method in certain selected Salt Lake City schools (Granite School District). He was also asked if he would give a workshop to school district teachers. Well aware of the value of his Copyrighted method, realizing that such a workshop would instantly disseminate his method — “created specifically for the education market” — and run the risk of his being “scooped” by a competitor imitation before his own pioneering publication opportunity, and keenly aware of his needing $18,000 for the self-publishing of his book (one of a planned set of several), he said that his fee for the workshop for teachers would be $5,000. After the lead administrator’s conferring with others in the administration the decision was to decline the $5,000 expense of a workshop but eagerly move forward on the $2,000 2-week demonstration whose purpose was to provide more in-depth scrutiny by not only the school district administration but the principals and classroom teachers of the classrooms in which Mr.B would be teaching.
As it happened, unbeknown to Mr.B and much to his surprise, the two week demonstration did, in fact, become an unsanctioned, uncompensated metro-wide “workshop” as evidenced by the stack of “sign-in” sheets discovered by Mr.B (on his last day) titled, incredibly enough, “Brent Hughes Workshop”, with attendees from throughout the greater metropolitan Salt Lake Valley. Soon thereafter — within weeks of Mr.B’s return home to Alaska, he being unable to inquire of the administrator about both the expressly unsanctioned “workshop” (as well as possibilities licensing) since the administrator had been coincidentally “out of the office” on that fateful (“sign-in” roster discovery) last day of servicing the two-week “demo” — a nationwide tutorial franchisee couple in that same Salt Lake Valley sold their franchise (always “in the loop” of local breaking news on novel strategies) and marketed themselves throughout Salt Lake City as the creators of a Cartoon Mnemonic method of teaching the Times Table (precisely the same general strategy using “kid-friendly” animated Rhyme and Storyline Cartoon Mnemonics — albeit their own variation — as Mr.B had just finished “pioneering” in the two-week “supposedly restricted viewing” demonstration in the same Metropolitan Salt Lake Valley, as arranged 3 months earlier). Mr.B had, indeed, been opportunistically “scooped” thanks to the breach of the oral agreement.
And — to polish off the hometown “hat trick”, over a decade later — many years after Mr. B invented his 1990 pioneering Rhyme-based Times Table Tricks® method for kids and had it disseminated throughout the greater metropolitan Salt Lake Valley (as mentioned above, expressly without authorization bestowed to the school district) — an individual in the local “education” community from the same Salt Lake Valley applied for and received a patent on precisely Mr. B’s 1991 federally registered copyrighted idea of using Rhymes to teach kids the Times Table — an idea he widely disseminated throughout the early to mid 90s across 4 states to thousands of auditorium children along with TV, Radio and Major Newspaper Cover Story exposure ( Please see the FULL-Letterhead Testimonial and Newspaper Article Library, especially item #18 ). Remarkably, for this feat, the individual then prominently engaged in self-congratulations on their homepage, underscoring, again, the universally endorsed power of (and excitement in imitating ) Mr.B’s 1990 ground-breaking strategy (for over 2 decades, now, summarily ignored by the “education” industry but eagerly laid claim to by enterprising imitators to follow — and notably devoid of ever any acknowledgement or even a reference of any kind of Mr.B as obviously “prior art”, never mind his being, in fact, the founding “inventor” of the strategy).
Unable to finance his own marketing over the intervening years, Mr.B only now is in position to carry his 1-hr. instruction method to the nation’s children. It is a testament to the power of Mr.B’s pioneering Rhyme and Storyline Cartoon Mnemonic Times Table method that many subsequent versions of his strategy by others have subsequently arisen providing an increasing array from which America’s parents and teachers may now contemplate implementation.
Now, as of the date of this inaugural publication of the launching of this watershed website for essentially “1-DAY” TIMES TABLE MASTERY for all the world’s English-speaking children, for the first-time-ever, the world’s children now have access to the ONLY Conceptually and Grammatically Complete and Correct, Kid-Friendly 1-HR.-Times Table “Interactive” Video “Textbook” anywhere in the world.
“CLAIMS” of “SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE”:
For 28 yrs. Mr.B has sought a school district which would be willing to run a legitimate, professionally conducted, meaningful, large-scale multi-school pre-/post-test analysis on his method but none have ever been willing — not even in his current home town of 29 yrs.. He is well aware of the cogency of “claims of efficacy” in the competitive market place by vendors of products and services who lay claim to their method’s supposedly resulting in “significant difference” in pre-/post-test analyses. However, as of the date of this website’s initial publication online, of all marketers of Times Table methods imitating Mr.B’s 1990 pioneering invention of using Rhyme and Storyline Cartoon Mnemonic strategies to teach the Times Table to very young children, none that he is aware of have ever substantiated their highly touted claims of “significant difference” with actual professional, letterhead documentation of such “claims”. Perhaps exposing this obvious failure will incentivize such claimants to scramble to attempt to provide such minimal documentation for legitimization — at least in any such cases where such legitimate “letterhead” documentation can actually be provided. This, of course, will be a good thing.
When confronted with claims stating “studies show 100% significant improvement” the savvy parent should settle for nothing less than, at a minimum, the industry standard of a FULL letterhead professional summary report listing the actual values of the standard key parameters descriptive of real, legitimate “statistical significance” (without which any “claim” of any percent “significant improvement” is simply invalid). But then any entrepreneurial math strategy proprietor with a working knowledge of basic high school math will, of course, realize this critically mandatory minimum requirement for legitimacy of such claims from the outset — statistical analysis (even at the most elementary level) being, itself, “mathematics”. And, of course, the savvy parent should insist that such “documentation” be on legitimate “professional letterhead” with contact information (for independent verification) of the professional organization having conducted the analysis.
Undocumented graphs, tables, bar charts, etc. lacking the aforementioned minimum industry standard reporting of the actual numerical values of the parameters of “statistical significance” — especially when simply posted on the “internet” — fall short of customary professional standards. For some this may not be of significant concern. But for the savvy shopper on a limited budget for whom such “claims” hold sway, prudence dictates insistence of legitimacy by professional minimum standards for credibility. Clearly, any legitimate claim of excellence — whether (1) Pre-/Post-test analyses or (2) Testimonials — must provide FULL Letterhead documentation with contact information for INDEPENDENT VERIFICATION to be taken seriously. In this context, mere floating “claims” in quotation marks (with or without some “name”) are widely regarded as unacceptably unprofessional. True excellence deserves the nation’s resounding support but such “excellence” must be bonafiably properly documented as “real”, with FULL Letterhead documentation for INDEPENDENT VERIFICATION as an absolute industry minimum standard expectation for professionalism.
The QUESTIONABLE VALUE of TUTORIAL CENTERS in the MILLENNIAL ERA of ONLINE TUTORIALS:
Colorado was but one of 4 states in which Mr.B made large, free auditorium shows available to children and in every case he has developed a considerable reputation for his revolutionary method ( Please see the FULL-Letterhead Testimonial and Newspaper Article Library ). A Colorado franchisee of a Nationwide Math Tutorial Franchise Company, devoted solely to teaching Mathematics, in April 2009 expressed interest in learning Mr.B’s method and was willing to pay Mr.B for the opportunity to pilot the method for possible licensing. Mr.B, always eager to reach more kids, was perfectly happy to freely grant several months use of his proprietary content and offered assistance (materially and by demonstration) to the local Colorado franchisee, without charge for licensing or materials loaned for the piloting, contingent upon a non-disclosure agreement. As a result of the pilot results, the franchisee forwarded Mr.B’s proprietary content on to their national headquarters and — based on the remarkable results of the piloting period — urged its national corporate headquarters to consider licensing Mr.B’s Times Table Tricks® method. Though the non-disclosure agreement did not allow for forwarding Mr.B’s proprietary information/content to their headquarters for their scrutiny, Mr.B — upon hearing of this development — chose to put the best trusting face on the matter and offered to assist the headquarters in the method’s instruction as well as assist in any other way. Corporate headquarters evidently thought enough of the power of Mr.B’s general strategy — as testified by their own franchisee couple in Colorado — that they decided that rather than pay to license Mr.B’s Times Table Tricks® ‘s copyrighted method they would simply attempt to imitate Mr.B’s general mnemonic strategy by creating a “method of their own” (or so Mr.B has been informed — he never heard further from them and they are, understandably, highly protective of “their method”).
With Mr.B’s method now available to the world online, and given that tutorial centers are by their nature, local, it begs the obvious contemplation and investigative examination of comparing modes of math tutorial resourcing: With the internet teeming with online math tutorial videos the questionable relevance of nationwide brick-and-mortar math tutorial centers is cogent: those claiming “we are different from all the rest” is disappointingly uncompelling when their curricular fare is actually examined. Mr.B sees absolutely no significant difference between the sample practices highlighted in such tutorial company website promotional samplings of their wares and techniques as compared to the standard fare and techniques mainstream throughout the nation’s “education” industry classroom practices from which the “creators” of such companies’ math curricula invariably arise.
Math pedagogy in the U.S., as evident to many observers of both classroom math instruction as well as the textbooks from which such instruction is guided, is nearly entirely “training” of process rather than insightfully seamless derivational “education” allowing for complete, Seamlessly Smooth Total Derivation of ALL (not some, not most, not almost all, but ALL) dispensed formulaic results. Whether typical brick-and-mortar “free” classroom instruction or “for-profit” brick-and-mortar tutorial center instruction, Mr.B identifies the same paralysis of vision impeding the redirecting of our nation’s focus from mere robotized “training” to truly seamless derivational “educating”, since Only Seamlessly Deriving ALL mathematics Results assures that our children will emerge as true world-class masters of the underlying math conceptual expertise allowing for innovation on the very frontier boundaries of novel applications. In the persistent absence of truly “seamlessly” derived math results throughout the math curriculum (not just nationwide, but worldwide as well), Mr.B sees no essential difference between the nation’s current 40th-rated U.S. math curricula of public “education” and ANY “for-profit” curricular fare (invariably created by those trained by the same U.S. schools of “education” responsible for the U.S. 39th-rate pedagogical paradigm — whether public, private or homeschool resource). In this, Mr.B can only hope that others have had a different experience and he encourages parents to spread the word where advertised claims actually match results for their children. However, with the currently entrenched methods, Mr.B remains dreadfully skeptical that the U.S. will ever emerge from the mired swamp of spectacular failure of effectively teaching our nation’s children mathematics at a level of excellence to warrant international admiration and competitive offerings in the future world-wide market place.
How best, then, do we assure that our nation’s children shall indeed be emancipated through a radically new paradigm shift in which we — together as a nation — lift our children (and, therefore, our nation) from 35th to 1st place?
The Dream, the Conviction: It is inevitable — Online resources will certainly inevitably render brick-and-mortar tutorial centers and public classroom education obsolete in their current form — replacing “classroom instruction” in schools and tutorial centers with neighborhood self-paced online computer learning centers allowing young children to rapidly accelerate through Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, Calculus, etc. at their own excited rate at their computer stations, requiring only parent volunteers for proctoring mainstream online instruction — individual as well as group –exclusively through “online digital feeds” by true experts (instructors with 1st-rate “performance” credentials as opposed to the tired and decades-old inept 40th-rate certified “paper” credentials).
TIMES TABLE TRICKS® — WIDELY ESTABLISHED PRIMACY OF “INVENTION” :
Throughout the 90s, Mr.B’s marketed self-published book, numerous free auditorium shows to thousands of children across 4 states , multiple TV prime time news special reports, multiple Children’s TV guest appearances, TV and Radio talk show guest appearances and Newspaper Cover Stories — as well as his revolutionary pioneering strategy being very widely exposed by Utah’s aforementioned Granite School District “WORKSHOP” to educators from throughout the greater metropolitan Salt Lake Valley — all serve as de facto testament to the wide publicity of “first invention” given Mr.B’s revolutionary RHYME- and STORYLINE-based 1990 TIMES TABLE TRICKS® curriculum. This millennial paradigm-changing strategy, since 1990, has permanently defined TIMES TABLE TRICKS® as the original pioneering gold-standard “state of the art” in teaching the world’s children the holy grail of computational mathematics (namely, the Times Table) — not only for U.S. school children, but clearly for all of the world’s English-speaking children as well ( Please see the FULL-Letterhead Testimonial and Newspaper Article Library ).
OUTREACH DECLINED:
After finally formally self-publishing his 1990 method in book form in 1994, Mr.B’s efforts thereafter to literally “overnight” emancipate the nation’s kids from the hallmark struggle of mastering the Times Table (the seminal “catalyst skill” unleashing a lifetime of math mastery and the complete spectrum of math-based career options strictly dependent thereupon) — by offering free demos to top administrators of 100 of the largest U.S. school districts, both in the mid-90’s as well as again in the 2011-2012 school year — were met, universally, with total disinterest and summarily dismissed out of hand by said school district administrations despite high-profile testimonials submitted in advance (Please see the FULL-Letterhead Testimonial and Newspaper Article Library).
Of particular note was his experience with Colorado’s largest school district — Jefferson County (Jeffco) Public Schools (home to the Columbine school disaster just a few years later). In the early 90’s Mr.B presented his method in a personal demonstration (in the presence of his colleague) to a Jeffco school district-level administrator whereupon — despite teacher testimonials of acclaim ( Please see the Testimonials ) — the Jeffco administrator expressed no interest in any further consideration. How unfortunate. Who’s to say that an early victory in mathematics for the young children of Jeffco Public Schools would not, years later, have made a crucial difference in the lives of disaffected students bound in despair from years of frustration. Should the nation tolerate school district administrations ignoring highly acclaimed “outsider” offerings especially auspiciously promising for all of America’s kids struggling in the underbelly of a 40th-rate math “education” paradigm? A fair question. Who, indeed, is to say whether or not an historical alternative path may have been taken for untold numbers of Jefferson County children had the Jeffco Public Schools proactively given Mr.B the kind of opportunity he was afforded soon thereafter by neighboring Denver’s Community College of Denver Technical Education Center, and a host of other visionary advocacy organizations for whom “Children First” is not just a banner for PR releases ( Please see ALL items, #1—>#32, FULL-Letterhead Testimonial and Newspaper Article Library ). The kind of renaissance the testimonials and newspaper articles foretold (read them, America!) could have been Jeffco’s children’s (and their parents) had the Jeffco school district only given Mr.B the opportunity he likewise sought (but this time found in abundance) in neighboring Denver — and beyond. Mr.B’s subsequent repeat offer to the same Jeffco school district to freely demonstrate the method — this time some 2 decades later, in 2012 — was once again declined by the Jeffco School District Administration without any attempt at viewing — this time by the Jeffco school district’s superintendent, who made it very clear that her district would not be interested in viewing any demonstration of what had been acclaimed in provided testimonials attached to Mr.B’s 2012 free offer. The superintendent said her district already had decided on their own course of action for excellence. For over 2 decades, having withstood universal dismissal out of hand of his generous free offers to demonstrate his method to these largest of nationwide school districts, spotlighting his method’s power by eagerly offering to demonstrate his acclaimed 1-hr. instruction strategy to the most challenging pilot class of “at risk” students the school districts were invited to assemble, Mr.B decided to investigate precisely how promising the Jeffco school district superintendent’s administration had, in fact, been and therefore how successfully (or not) the impact would be with their proclaimed own planned course of action for the 2012-2013 academic year — as opposed to a brief consideration of some “outsider’s” offerings. Well, the gulf of difference is telling: Compare Mr.B’s accolades ( Please see the FULL-Letterhead Testimonial and Newspaper Article Library, herein ) with the Jeffco school district administration’s most recent track record at the time of contact, Spring, 2012 (we obviously eagerly await results for their 2012-2013 academic year): (1) The Jeffco school district’s own course of action with that water-shed skill, mastery of the Multiplication Table, was: FLASH CARDS (albeit, “electronic”– now that really is cutting edge!)– that time-tested mind-bludgeoning dread of virtually every school child in history. (2) And how wide a differentiating gulf of achievement for Jeffco’s students in their later years might we speculate that such divergent talents at Multiplication Table instruction early on might have portended would ensue several years later as those same students approached high school graduation prior to their life launch out into the world — achievement with Mr.B’s method versus any/all methods of Jeffco Public Schools administration? While no one knows for sure, we might well compare the results of Mr.B’s methods with both highly at-risk students as well as grade school age children ( Please see the FULL-Letterhead Testimonial and Newspaper Article Library items #9 –> #21 and #32 ) versus Jeffco Public Schools’ across-the-board 10th grade students: According to Jeffco Public Schools’ own school district math performance records, their 10th grade students performed at the 49th-percentile — the bottom half in a nation already, itself, — at the time — 28th ranked internationally (now, 2018, 40th-ranked internationally in math service to children). While strictly speaking it is a legal issue, one is safe to presume that U.S. School District Administrations are accountable to their communities in general and their financial benefactors — the property tax paying voters of their community — in particular. As a general matter of precedent setting record, more than one school district administration has been held accountable through litigation via claims of administrative “neglect” — on the surface, inherently subjective — on behalf of an impassioned coalition of resolute parental citizenry once apprised. Let us not forget that we, as a nation, rank 40th in mathematics and it is certainly reasonable to raise these points of accountability herein.
Resources have been offered, school district administration “decisions” have been made. Arguably, consequences therefrom are now a “40th-rate” international embarrassment — not to mention the irrevocable impact upon (among other things) career options of countless thousands (millions?) of students for whom amends are no longer possible. In some small measure, America may now consider itself apprised.
In light of the foregoing, it will doubtlessly come as no surprise to America that, as a postscript, despite being presented with stellar testimonials (as well as newspaper articles) from teachers as well as principals from within their own school districts, the school districts from both Mr.B’s former resident community of Boulder, Colorado as well as his current residence of over 2 decades in Anchorage, Alaska have steadfastly categorically dismissed out of hand any interest in a serious, professional, high profile pre-/post-test analysis of his Times Table Tricks® method. Whatever their actual intent may have been, it can of course be credibly argued that such dismissals of willingness to examine the method allows such administrations the luxury of plausible deniability of being “informed” thereby conveniently pro-actively providing themselves political cover in avoiding witnessing for themselves how it is that one man (“outsider”) can achieve for the children what an entire national “educational establishment” has obviously never been able to achieve — not just with classrooms of very young “at risk” children but with entire auditoriums of children. ( Please see Testimonial Library item #1 –> #8. )
America’s kids (and parents) need wait no longer. Deliverance is at hand: the power of Times Table Tricks® belongs to America’s children.
The “FINAL STRAW”:
As a last resort —
A watershed moment is now upon us in what is the final blossoming of what promises to be the birth of a millennial renaissance concurrent with the (hopefully) rapid obsolescence of a paradigm which claims “For the Children” but, ….. well, let’s just let the following documentaries speak to the point (A “Must See” for all Americans): America, you simply must see documentaries “Waiting for Superman”, “The Lottery” and the capstone of them all, “The Cartel” — a “Must See” trilogy of documentaries at your very earliest opportunity. While the last documentary is clearly a “Call to Action” of an entire nation to rescue not only the children from a disastrous U.S. “education” paradigm but a nation’s very future, the former two documentaries are confirmingly indicting of the heart-breaking priority of the “education” establishment’s “adult prioritization” interests in contrast to America’s families’ “children prioritization” interests. Parents, frantically desperate, panic to “save their children” from the public school system’s perpetually dreary inevitable legacy of perfectly predictably annually sustained academic poverty, with its presiding — year after year — over what is rapidly becoming an internationally iconic 40th-rated “brand”, the laughing stock of the world — a scholastic condemnation of countless millions of children who have suffered academically over the past decades. These highly detailed documentaries reveal the shocking teacher-union-fueled machinations set into motion to stymie/stifle desperate efforts of parents and their children to escape an abysmal academic prognosis. (Again, a “Must See” trilogy of documentaries at your very earliest opportunity.)
In response to the tragic message and implied “call for action” of these documentaries and anticipating somewhat lengthy layovers at JFK on his way to (and again on the return from) Europe, Mr.B contacted principal protagonists interviewed in both “Waiting for Superman” as well as “The Lottery” — offering to freely teach his 1-hr. Times Table method to all children both in Harlem as well as the children of Newark who failed to be chosen in lotteries, as depicted in these documentaries. Not one of those contacted was the least bit interested in assisting — in any way — in the setting up of what could have been a free, watershed moment for many thousands of young children who would have had a chance-in-a -life-time opportunity to get a huge jump in their math careers by — collectively — Mastering the Times Table in one joyous day together. But it was not to be. Sadly, the lack of any interest by those contacted principal players in the documentaries seemed (to Mr.B, at least) to signal an implied rally for assistance in name only. At last, Mr.B’s disillusionment with the adult-element in position to facilitate a joint renaissance for the nation’s children was permanently fixed. It remained for Mr.B, then, to do it on his own.
Thus, this Times Table Tricks® website and Mr.B’s “EVERY CHILD IN AMERICA A TIMES TABLE CHAMPION BY YEAR’S END 2013 (now updated each year to the current 2019)” campaign was born. Mr.B resigned himself to waiting until he could afford a mass-scale method to get his 1990 Rhyme-/Storyline-based pioneering Times Table strategy out to the world’s English-speaking children on his own, affordable terms. Such is now the case with Mr.B’s iconic Times Table Tricks ® 1-hr. “video textbook” website, which, pending favorable reception, will be accompanied in the near future by his proprietary strictly-conceptually “Numeracy-based” ADDITION (“several-digit”, typically 4 hr. mastery), SUBTRACTION (“several-digit”, typically 4 hr. mastery), MULTIPLICATION (“several-digit”, typically 4 hr. mastery) and DIVISION (“several-digit”, typically 4 hr. mastery) instruction strategies for Kindergarteners/1st graders. In particular, as regards Addition and Subtraction, he will demonstrate his proprietary conceptual “Numeracy”-based method of teaching Kindergarteners/1st graders mastery of Adding stacks of 8-digit numbers as well as Subtracting 8-digit numbers — both skills typically mastered within 4 hours (each) — ALL WITHOUT ANY MEMORIZATION or POINTLESS MNEMONICS (no need for the historic drudgery of spending endless hours — in class as well as at home — memorizing “math facts” or — for Addition or Subtraction — the completely unnecessary, complicated abstractions fooling around with mnemonics).
AMERICA, IT’S YOUR MOVE!
The present method is out to see to it that, for the first time ever,
EVERY CHILD in AMERICA (and Beyond) RAPIDLY MASTERS the TIMES TABLE by year’s end
–that’s EVERY CHILD — regardless of the method used.
EVERY CHILD A “TIMES TABLE CHAMPION” BY YEAR’S END!
LET’S JUST GET THE JOB DONE FOR OUR NATION’S KIDS — ONCE AND FOR ALL!