Their first baby step into the world of fashion consisted of four color options — dark blue, dull green, brown, and gray. Those few choices made all of them, even Sata, nearly giddy with happiness.
When the tailor had taken all their orders, and dealt with several changes of mind, Ilika added plenty of shorts and socks to the order.
The man departed, promising their clothes in two days.
“Okay, let’s do some math,” Ilika said, getting out sheets of paper. “But before we start, I want you to understand this is not testing anymore.
Everyone has to learn every bit of this, and we don’t move on until you can all do it in your sleep. See the difference?”
Thoughtful nods filled the room.
“Our digits range from zero to one less than our base. What is our base?”
“Five!” Kodi answered confidently.
“Nope. That was a pretend situation for the test.”
Kodi squirmed, but seemed to recover.
“We have two hands, and in this kingdom we use base ten. So our highest digit is nine. Let’s count.” He held up a sheet with nine dots in a row and they counted the dots together, some students leading, some echoing a fraction of a second later.
“Now, as I hold up sheets with dots and say someone’s name, that person will count the dots aloud. Everyone else will follow silently. Mati?”
“One, two, um . . . um . . .” She stopped and turned red.
“Three!” Toli blurted out.
NEBADOR Book One: The Test 136
“It wasn’t your turn, Toli,” Ilika said firmly. “That’s showing off. We’re not doing that. We’re doing math, teamwork style, trust-building style.
Okay?”
“Okay,” Toli said in a flat voice.
“Mati?” Ilika prompted again.
“But . . . someone already said the answer,” she whimpered in a voice close to tears. “Someone else always gets to do things instead of me, it’s always been like that, all my life.”
Sata put her arm around the trembling girl, and Ilika came close to listen to what she had to say.
“I guess I had parents once, but they just passed me around from one relative to another. The other kids had copper pieces to spend, but not me.
The other kids got to learn how to cook, or garden, or keep animals, but not me. I think my parents eventually forgot who I was staying with, and the relatives forgot I was a relative.
“For a while I slept in a shed with the slave, a big, simple boy who was kind and kept me warm. I helped him weed the garden sometimes, and that made me so happy. But then the relative got sick, his farm was sold, and I went with the slave.
“I’ve been sold and resold many times since then. I’m worth a little silver piece at the most, sometimes just a few coppers . . .” Her words broke into deep sobs as Sata and Neti surrounded her with their arms.
Ilika’s eyes glistened. “That’s all in the past now,” he assured. “Are you ready to continue your education?”
Mati managed a tiny nod as her teacher held up the sheet of paper. “Um
. . . one, two, um . . . three,” she whispered with her feelings barely under control.
“Everyone see how easy it is to hurt someone, destroy trust, and ruin a lesson?” Ilika said to the entire group.
“I’m sorry,” Toli said as others nodded thoughtfully.
Ilika held up another sheet. “Rini?”
“One, two, three, four, five.”
“Toli?”
“Four!”
NEBADOR Book One: The Test 137
“Count them aloud please, Toli. We’ll get to recognition soon.”
“One, two, three, four,” he said with a huff.
“Buna?”
“One, two, three, four, five, um . . .”
Everyone kept their lips tightly sealed as Buna struggled to remember.
“Six!”
“Kibi?”
“Um . . . um . . . what was that called?” she said as she stared at the blank piece of paper. “Zero!”
Ilika smiled. He continued to make them count dots until he was sure they were masters of the art.
“Neti, the number of legs on the table?”
“One, two, three, four!”
“Miko, the number of pieces of firewood on the hearth?”
“One, two, three, four, five, six . . . seven . . . eight, and . . . um . . . nine?”
“You guys are good! That’s why I picked you. Now to what Toli tried, recognition. Count silently if you must, but try to just know how many dots there are. Kibi?”
“Um . . . three?”
“Toli?
“Wow. Five?”
“Kodi?”
“Two!”
The recognition drills continued, first with the dots in nice, neat lines or squares. Ilika worked with them on the ones that gave them trouble.
Then he started flashing small numbers of disorganized dots. They did well through four, but five and above forced them to count.
“Try this hard one, Sata.”
NEBADOR Book One: The Test 138
There was a long silence. “Eleven, I think.”
“Other
opinions?”
“I got ten,” Mati said, glancing at Toli with a gleam of warning in her eyes.
“There are only nine dots here,” Ilika said, “but the fact that they’re disorganized, and you aren’t close enough to mark them as you count, makes it easy to count some dots twice.” Then he counted them aloud, making a mark through each dot as he went.
He held up another sheet with disorganized dots. “Kodi?”
The lad hopped off his bed, grabbed a pencil from the table, and counted the dots to himself, marking them as he went. “Seven!”
“Congratulations! On that note of success, let’s go see what’s cooking, shall we?”
Deep Learning Notes
Ilika tried to explain the difference between the competitive test, and the teamwork lessons aimed at mastery, but Toli didn’t get it at first. This is a major problem in education today, as teachers are forced to teach quickly and tailor the material to some standardized test, but mastery is not required.
Education that “doesn’t really matter” uses this method; for example, society doesn’t really care if a young adult knows long division, now that we have calculators. Genuine learning for mastery, on the other hand, cannot be forced or rushed. Pilots are a good example, as they have to learn certain skills, and it doesn’t matter if it takes 20 hours, or 100 hours. They are not a pilot until the skills are mastered.
After dealing with her feelings and telling her story, Ilika makes Mati finish the problem she started to solve. What does this tell us about his teaching methods?
Counting a large number of disorganized dots is as much an organizing problem as a counting problem. Ilika gave them one method: ticking. Can you think of another?
