Chinese abacus is one of the representatives of excellent traditional Chinese culture, with a long history. Abacus, once an indispensable computing tool in various industries, has made important contributions to promoting social development. With the popularity of computers, abacus and abacus gradually fade out of people's vision. As an innovative form, Mental abacus has begun to shine in the field of education. Decades of theoretical and practical research at home and abroad have confirmed that Mental abacus education has a significant role in developing children's intellectual potential. In order to carry out in-depth experimental research and promote the development of Mental abacus, with the support and guidance of relevant departments and bureaus of the Ministry of Education, the China Association of Mental Abacus (hereinafter referred to as the China Association of abacus) has carried out the construction of Mental abacus education and teaching experimental areas nationwide since 2012, Currently, 14 experimental zones and 82 experimental schools (parks) have been established.

On March 14-15, 2023, the China Pearl River Union and the Chinese Academy of Financial Sciences formed a joint research team to carry out a special survey in the Mental abacus Experimental Area of Abacus Mental Computation Education and Teaching (hereinafter referred to as Cixi Experimental Area) in Cixi City, Zhejiang Province. The main purpose is to understand the development of Mental abacus's Abacus Mental Computation education, especially the achievements and experience since joining the experimental area, and analyze the difficulties and obstacles faced by the development of the experimental area, Propose countermeasures and suggestions to promote the development of experimental areas.

1�� Development of Mental abacus education in Cixi, Zhejiang

Abacus is the basis of Mental abacus. Since the establishment of schools in China, there have been abacus subjects in primary schools. [1] Since the 1950s, some mathematics teachers and educators have gradually realized the internal relationship between abacus, written calculation and oral calculation, and started to combine the three algorithms for teaching, [2] that is, the teaching experiment of three calculation combination, which has played a role in promoting the later production of Mental abacus education. In the 1970s, Cixi City was one of the areas where the combination of three arithmetic teaching was well carried out. Later, Mental abacus first sprouted in Tangtou Primary School and Cixi Minghe Primary School in Tannan Township, Cixi County, which attracted great attention from the education department. In the mid-1980s, under the specific guidance of Ningbo Teaching and Research Office and Cixi Teaching and Research Office, Cixi formed the first batch of Mental abacus experimental schools: Cixi County Changhe District Central Primary School, Cixi County Minghe Primary School, and Cixi County Gaowang Primary School, which produced the first generation of Mental abacus coaches. Around the 1990s, Cixi's competitive level of Mental abacus was at the top level in China for a long time, which was the heyday of Mental abacus development.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, the development of Mental abacus in Cixi has gradually declined, the scale of experiments has gradually shrunk, and the number of Mental abacus learners has dropped by more than 80%. In order to solve the problems faced by the development of Mental abacus, since 2011, Cixi City has organized leading experts to start field research in areas with better development of Mental abacus teaching, learn relevant experience, and provide suggestions for revitalizing the cause of Mental abacus. In April 2012, in order to inherit and carry forward the abacus culture and create a brilliant Mental abacus cause, the office of Cixi Municipal People's Government issued Several Opinions on Revitalizing the Mental abacus Cause and Creating a Characteristic Cultural and Educational Brand (CZBF [2012] No. 69), which is the first document on Mental abacus education and teaching issued by the government in China. In November 2012, the China Pearl Association issued the Notice on the Establishment of Mental abacus Education and Teaching Experimental Areas and Points (ZZ [2012] No. 22), and Cixi City, Zhejiang Province, was approved as the Mental abacus education and teaching experimental area. Based on the attention of the municipal government and the establishment of Cixi Experimental Zone, the education and teaching of Mental abacus in Cixi began to take off for the second time, and breakthroughs were made in various work. After nearly ten years of development, Mental abacus is facing new opportunities and challenges. In July 2021, the Office of the People's Government of Cixi City again released the Working Opinions on Strengthening the Inheritance and Development of Mental abacus Abacus and Creating an Excellent Brand of Traditional Chinese Culture and Education (CZBF [2021] No. 40), which pointed out the direction for the development of Mental abacus abacus teaching in the new era.

At present, the teaching experiment of Mental abacus in Cixi covers kindergarten, primary school, junior high school, vocational high school and special education. By the end of 2022, Cixi Experimental School has 46 kindergartens, 12 primary schools, 4 middle schools, 3 vocational high schools, 1 special education school, and 8 private training institutions, with more than 7500 students in total and more than 280 Mental abacus teachers. Since the establishment of the experimental zone, the total number of students learning Mental abacus in Cixi City has reached more than 87000.

2�� Mental abacus education in Cixi, Zhejiang has achieved remarkable results

After more than 40 years of development and 10 years of solid innovation since joining the Mental abacus education and teaching experimental zone, Cixi Mental abacus education has gained valuable experience and formed a unique development model of the experimental zone.

��1�� Ensuring sustainable development through a standardized institutional system

Cixi leaders at all levels have always attached great importance to the education and teaching of Mental abacus. In 2012 and 2021, Cixi Municipal People's Government issued two documents to strengthen the inheritance and protection of abacus culture and the development of Mental abacus education, providing a strong policy guarantee for the development of Cixi Mental abacus education and teaching in different periods. The Cixi Experimental Zone takes professional teaching and research work as the starting point, and cooperates with multiple departments such as finance and education to establish a series of standardized and standardized rules and regulations to ensure the smooth progress of various work. Firstly, the system for evaluating the placement of experimental base schools has been established, clarifying the mid-term layout plan for each town and street to designate a primary school and kindergarten in principle, and proposing the application requirements and procedures for experimental base schools; The second is the system of selection and training of the collective training team. The municipal Mental abacus collective training team is selected and established. The training is arranged by each experimental school from Monday to Friday, and the training is carried out on Saturday morning and winter and summer vacation as a unified time for the market training team to prepare for various competitions; The third is the system of the evaluation and management of coaches' qualifications, strengthening the evaluation and management of coaches' qualifications, and gradually standardizing the teaching order of Mental abacus; The fourth is the system of awards for the evaluation and competition. Based on the documents of the municipal government, the municipal finance bureau and the education bureau jointly issue various kinds of Mental abacus award documents, including material awards for schools, coaches, players and other levels, as well as policies and regulations on the evaluation and promotion of coaches.

��2�� Promoting high-quality development of experimental areas with the positioning of the "three three three system"

On the basis of respecting the laws of human growth and education, as well as the development requirements of the experimental area, the education and teaching work of Cixi Experimental Area has established "three major concepts", "three types of goals", and "three forms". The three major concepts of "intelligence education first, popularization first, and law first" are put across the whole situation. "intelligence education first" means consciously breaking the old concept that "learning Mental abacus arithmetic" is equivalent to "learning calculation", committed to improving students' memory, attention, thinking ability and presentational ability, and taking "inheriting culture, opening up wisdom, and striving to create a new generation of more high-quality Cixi" as the teaching purpose; 'Popularization first' means solidly carrying out universal education, not rushing to catch the top students, benefiting more children, and forming a social effect; "Law first" means respecting both the teaching law of Mental abacus and the education law of the school. Under the existing education policy, it pays attention to the improvement of students' comprehensive quality. We have established highly collaborative "educational goals, curriculum goals, and social goals", with educational goals positioned as enlightening goals centered around enhancing children's observation, attention, memory, thinking, and imagery abilities; The curriculum goal is positioned to comply with the requirements of the national three-level curriculum management system, based on school-based curriculum, and actively strive to establish local curriculum; The social goal is to inherit and promote the excellent traditional Chinese abacus culture, and enhance cultural confidence. We have innovated differentiated teaching methods such as gamification in preschool education, curriculum in compulsory education, and daily life in special education for children. The goal of preschool education is to develop children's cognitive potential, while the goal of compulsory education is to improve students' core literacy and school level. The goal of special education is to integrate health and education and adapt to social life.

��3�� Mental abacus boosts rural schools to improve school running level

Cixi City carried out Mental abacus teaching in the form of school-based curriculum in compulsory education section, which played an important role in improving the level of running schools in rural areas and promoting the balanced development of urban and rural education. As an expanding course independently developed by the school, Mental abacus provides students with more independent choices, improves students' comprehensive literacy, and meets the needs of students' personalized development. Taking Minghe Primary School in Cixi City as an example, the school has a long history and is a rural school in the central and southern mountainous areas of Cixi. Since 1983, Mental abacus experiment has been started, and Minghe Primary School has gradually developed into a famous "Mental abacus characteristic school". For decades, the school has adopted the Mental abacus teaching strategy of "popularization+improvement", which not only benefits more and more students, but also promotes the high-quality development of the school. This is mainly reflected in three aspects: first, Mental abacus learning plays a positive role in cultivating students' patience, perseverance and concentration, from which all students in the school benefit and develop good learning habits and attitudes; Second, Mental abacus learning has not only improved students' computing ability and mathematical performance, but also spontaneously transferred their learning effects to learning English, Chinese and other subjects. The teaching quality of the school has steadily improved, and it can maintain the leading level of the city and the town in recent years in the graduation examination or in the discipline quality survey of other grades; Third, Mental abacus intensive training was carried out in the form of interest groups to train Mental abacus players and actively participate in various competitions at all levels, which won honors for the country and hometown, and also met the needs of students for further improvement and development.

��4�� Integrating Mental abacus into special education shows social responsibility and value

According to the data from the Second National Sampling Survey of Disabled Persons, the total number of people with various types of disabilities in China is currently 82.96 million, accounting for 6.34% of the total population. Among them, 5.54 million people have intellectual disabilities, accounting for 6.68% of the total number of disabled people. Theoretical research and teaching practice show that Mental abacus has scientific values such as developing the brain's intellectual potential, improving hand eye coordination, computing ability, attention, memory, observation, etc. It can benefit the vast number of people with intellectual disabilities and society through the "combination of health and education". Cixi Special Education School has offered Mental abacus course since 2013, which is mainly based on abacus, supplemented by Mental abacus, as a way of defect compensation and potential development. The school practices the concept of "combination of health and education, potential development", takes theoretical research as guidance, and combines teaching practice to constantly explore the positive role of Mental abacus for special children. Both theoretical research and practical innovation have achieved positive results. The school has developed a school-based textbook, Life Mental abacus, and formed a relatively scientific and perfect curriculum system; Compiled the Evaluation Form of Mental abacus Training for Children with Cerebral Palsy, and formulated Individualized Education Program for children with cerebral palsy according to the evaluation situation; The Mental abacus rehabilitation manual for children with cerebral palsy was developed, which preset the objectives of the Mental abacus rehabilitation manual from four aspects: physiological function, Mental abacus subject knowledge, living ability and subject integration; Compiled the Collection of Mental abacus Cases for Children with Cerebral Palsy, recorded the process, methods and results of Mental abacus health education training for children with cerebral palsy, and summarized the education and teaching experience of Mental abacus training and rehabilitation; The project "Research on Strategies of Mental abacus Training to Promote the Rehabilitation of Children with Cerebral Palsy" was completed, forming a series of research results of rehabilitation training of children with cerebral palsy using Mental abacus.

3�� The difficulties and problems in the development of Cixi Experimental Zone

Cixi Mental abacus education has been carried out in preschool, compulsory education and special education schools in an all-round way. The system and mechanism are sound, and the development of the experimental area continues to be good, laying a solid foundation for the sustainable and healthy development of Mental abacus, but there are still some difficulties and problems that need to be solved urgently.

��1�� The unbalanced development of Mental abacus education is prominent

First, the development of Mental abacus education in urban and rural areas is uneven. Mental abacus education develops well in rural areas, but generally in urban schools. Urban students have more interest classes to choose from, and the relatively small Mental abacus learning is not attractive to them. Rural students' enthusiasm for learning Mental abacus is significantly higher than urban students. However, as a large number of rural students enter the urban area to study, there are fewer and fewer rural local students, and most of them are children of migrant workers. The mobility of students is large, which is not conducive to the learning of Mental abacus. Second, Mental abacus education in public and private schools is uneven. Carrying out Mental abacus teaching experiments is voluntary, and some school leaders lack in-depth understanding and understanding of Mental abacus. Except for a few traditional schools with Mental abacus characteristics, public schools generally have low enthusiasm for Mental abacus experiments, are basically in a passive state, lack of development momentum, and even some schools have a tendency to gradually withdraw. Private kindergartens and social training institutions are enthusiastic, and Mental abacus education is significantly better than public schools. However, some private schools are too utilitarian, and if they are not standardized, they will inevitably have a negative impact on the development of the entire experimental area.

��2�� The learning of Mental abacus in different learning stages cannot be connected normally

The learning of Mental abacus has a serious problem of linking children with children. At present, there are more than 40 Mental abacus kindergartens in Cixi City, with more than 4000 children in school, all over the vast majority of villages and towns. Therefore, the Mental abacus experiment before learning is large and widely distributed. There are only 12 primary schools, and there are more than 2000 Mental abacus students. The teaching of Mental abacus in many kindergartens is quite distinctive, and has been supported and loved by students and parents. However, when they enter the primary school, the primary school in the corresponding school district may not have Mental abacus featured teaching, forcing the interruption of Mental abacus learning, which greatly affects the continuous promotion of Mental abacus learning. This phenomenon is also reflected in stages such as "junior high and junior high".

��3�� Issues such as teachers, teaching methods, and textbooks urgently need to be addressed

First, the teachers of Mental abacus have shouldered too heavy teaching tasks. At present, there is no special Mental abacus teacher in the school, and Mental abacus teachers should undertake the teaching task of Mental abacus in addition to completing the same workload as other mathematics teachers. Because the experiment period of Mental abacus calculation is relatively long, many teachers undertake the experiment task entirely by personal dedication. Heavy burden, high pressure, and disproportionate effort and gain. Second, the teaching methods are lagging behind, lacking the summary and effective use of the positive transfer of Mental abacus. Some students spontaneously internalize what they learned in Mental abacus and transfer it to the study of other subjects, but teachers lack in-depth reflection and exploration of its principles, and have not formed scientific and effective teaching methods. Thirdly, there is a lack of unified teaching materials. Each school in Cixi has a unified teaching content, teaching objectives and requirements, as well as teaching reference materials for each grade, but there is no unified textbook. Each school prepares school-based textbooks based on the actual situation, which may have greater autonomy for schools, but the quality varies, making it difficult to ensure teaching effectiveness.

��4�� Special education Mental abacus related research lacks theoretical support

Cixi Special Education School has made some achievements in the research on Mental abacus, but most of them still remain at the level of experience and practice. During the research process, school teachers encountered many problems and confusion, such as how to scientifically collect and analyze data? How to scientifically verify the effect and theoretical mechanism of Mental abacus education on children with mental retardation, cerebral palsy, autism, etc? Due to the lack of communication and cooperation with professional research institutions or universities, these problems have always been unable to be solved, and theoretical research needs to be broken through.

4�� Analysis of the Causes of Obstruction to the Development of Cixi Experimental Zone and Its Solutions

As the Intangible cultural heritage of mankind and the treasure of the Chinese nation for thousands of years, Mental abacus, as the creative transformation and innovative development of abacus, is based on the overall development of people and the improvement of their comprehensive quality. With a view to long-term development, it is necessary to analyze the deep-seated reasons that hinder the development of the experimental area, solve the problems faced by the development of the experimental area through top-level guidance and coordinated promotion, and help the Mental abacus blossom into greater contemporary value, Serve the process of human civilization.

��1�� Analysis of the reasons hindering the development of Cixi Experimental Zone

Through analysis, the deep-seated reasons for the unbalanced development of Mental abacus education in Cixi, the inability to link up Mental abacus learning in different learning stages, and the disconnection between Mental abacus education theory and practice are as follows: First, the core values and concepts of Mental abacus need more solid theoretical support, but the research on Mental abacus Scientific theory is relatively fragmented, lacking deep integration with teaching practice, and the formation of a sound Mental abacus theoretical system