Cocktails and Margins: 17 [Information Desk] Index

🎼🎹 Here is the theme song for this installment. Please listen to it while you read if you like.
✏️ Let it Be
(The Beatles)
Vocals: Ai Ninomiya

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This is Colonel Reinhard Daiden of the tutor control tower, 'Mugendo'.
Thank you very much for your continued support of our serialized novel, 'Cocktails and Margins'.

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This work is written with the sincere desire to respond from the front lines of education to the earnest concerns about arithmetic and mathematics held by parents of elementary and junior high school students.

Educational challenges may look the same at first glance
but they vary widely from family to family, and there is no one-size-fits-all correct answer.

Therefore, rather than presenting definitive answers, we chose the format of a story so that we can think together with our readers about how to analyze these concerns and how to face them.

The themes handled in this work are structured around the consultations that Terutada Katori, who presides over a cram school in a certain part of Tokyo and 'Mugendo', has received most frequently over his more than 40 years of teaching experience.

As a break from the story, we have set up an [Information Desk] that organizes the episodes so far by the consultation themes sent in by parents.

Please try knocking on the door of the story from the section that overlaps with your own concerns.

[Mugendo Educational Consultation Information Desk]
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1. 'Why do I have to learn mathematics (arithmetic)?'

🍸 How should adults sincerely face this fundamental question from their children and put its significance into words?
We present how to grasp the moment when knowledge turns into wisdom.
The details of this dialogue are written in detail in Season 1, Episode 2.

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2. 'What should I do to make my child like mathematics (arithmetic)?'

🍸 It is not about memorizing formulas, but about the small discoveries hidden in daily life.
Please refer to Season 1, Episode 3 for hints on how to capture the moments when the heart is moved.

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3. 'I hate arithmetic (mathematics)'

🍸 The child's true feelings hidden behind those words.
Rather than forcibly unraveling that sense of rejection, we share the process of first organizing those feelings.

Season 1, Episode 3. Colonel Daiden's personal theory.
Furthermore, the entire story of Season 2 is a novel based on the true stories of mathematicians who loved mathematics with their lives.
I would love for elementary and junior high school students to read it as well.

The inferiority complex or feelings of inadequacy one might feel toward those who are good at mathematics.
I think that can be alleviated by feeling closer to them.

Through the mirror of numbers, I have tried to depict in this novel a perspective for rediscovering one's own true value.

There was a time when women were forbidden from studying mathematics.
'Am I not allowed to love mathematics?'
I have depicted the inner cry of the real-life protagonist, Sonya.

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5. To foster a child's independence, what distance should a parent maintain, and how should they speak to them to believe in their power to walk on their own?

🍸 Practical hints for this are depicted in detail in Episode 14, Season 2, [Ichika's Entrance Exam Consultation 3], such as 'Koto-Koto Day'.

'Ichika and Miyabi' appear, these two are based on a real-life mother and child.
(The setting is quite close to the true story)

🥕 Katori has been in contact with families who have passed into top-level junior high schools such as Kaisei, Oin, and Joshi Gakuin, from his time as a lecturer at a major cram school to his current activities at the school he manages.

I will continue to introduce life hacks in my work.

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⑥ I was accused of cheating at cram school, which planted a seed of distrust toward the school.

🥕 This is one of the most painful situations for a parent: suspecting your own child of dishonesty.
In Season 2, I depicted the mindset needed for parents and children to face the truth together before being swayed by suspicion.

This story is also based on a real-life 'cheating incident' that occurred in the past.
In fact, the resolution is also based on a true story that the parent involved told me later.

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⑦ How parents should respond when their child is subjected to heartless suspicion from those around them.

🍸 In Episode 16 and Season 2, I have included guidelines on the firm stance adults should take to protect their child's dignity and prevent them from becoming isolated.

First, here is the model answer from Colonel Daiden.
However, the novel develops into an outcome that no one could have predicted.

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⑧ Things you must absolutely never do in an examinee's room.

🥕 This is explained with photos at the end of Episode 16.
As a tutor, when I visit students' rooms, I sometimes see a very painful 'don't.' It's on the child's bookshelf.

🥕 The above is the main index so far.

Thank you very much for reading this far.

I would be grateful if you could take another look when you have time, keeping these perspectives in mind.

🥕 Finally, would you please consider 'following' me and sending a 'like'?

When writing these notes, I pour in all the wisdom and courage I can muster.

I would appreciate it if you could give me a little push to help me prepare for the next series.

[Cocktails and] Click here for the magazine 🔽

🥕🥕🥕 Episode 16 🔽
There is a plot twist at the very end.
It is a story based on true events.

🥃🥕 And, here is the usual ending song.