I’ll start this off by being honest by saying that I started my Kumon journey with an extremely poor background in mathematics, being diagnosed as a year behind in my mathematical skills compared to my age bracket. Numbers just had that effect on me – made every minute last like an hour… all pain and no sunshine to be honest. So, when my family decided to make me enroll in the Kumon Math Program, I didn’t like it one bit. Who could blame me? I was 11 and obsessed with playing StarCraft and other things that could blink on my rusty Pentium 2.
My Kumon study started off nonchalantly. Only now did it sink in that, of course, it was a walk in the park. I was in Level A at 5th grade so I didn’t mind Kumon. It became a pleasant afternoon doing something mundane, a prelude to video game time. Then it all changed when multiplication and division began. I then began to spend more and more time in the Center. First, it was an additional 10 min, then 15 min, then it became 30 and it then became a slugfest for the right to call today “a weekend.” I hated it because I didn’t understand what I was doing, what I was going through, not to mention I had so much teenage things that preoccupied my head.
As I progressed up the ladder, topics began to get closer to my own topics at school but were in some ways always a quarter or two behind. This frustrated me and my family with talks of quitting the program always rearing its head. It was a grueling three years of high school being behind on my mathematics, and I always felt like I was in school to get me ready for the math at Kumon, which was the opposite of why I was there to begin with. Then 4th year hit and for the first time in my entire education, I was ahead of school and I LOVED IT. I LOVED EVERY MOMENT OF BEING AHEAD OF EVERYONE. That feeling that only you had the secret sauce – from formulas to being able to solve trigonometry problems on the fly, it was the first time that I came to love Kumon. It helped even more when I got my first medal for the advanced student award, and every moment of it was amazing. It was a proud moment for me, to finally say, “Yes, I am capable of being more than what most people think of me,” and that swell of pride when people run to me to solve math problems.
I had finished the program just in time for me to enter college, and I brought that mathematical whiz with me – zooming through problems without even having to open my book. It felt like I had done my entire college mathematics ahead of time with Kumon, and for that, I had more time to focus on my studies and have fun (something most college kids would do as well).
When I was in my 3rd year of college at Xavier University – Ateneo de Cagayan, I was challenged by my family to finish the Reading Program in two months for an amount I realize now is a kind of chump change. But at that moment, it meant everything because I wanted to play the latest Dragon Age on my PC. So, I did it in 60 days, where I did 20 worksheets a day every day, and I managed to complete it by record time in my Center. It was an amazing achievement to have even handled a level every week. It’s hardly fair for someone to call it a record when you’re a guy in his late teens doing the entire program in two months, so I hope someone younger will do it better than me.
Now, I am a Registered Psychometrician, a Licensed Professional Teacher, and now in my 3rd year status at Law School, and I can proudly say Kumon helped get me this far. I am proud of my entire Kumon journey as it has helped me feel competent in my intellect, English skills, and quite frankly my ability to count if I’ve overspent my allowance in Cebu. 🤣🤣🤣🤣
I cannot find any more ways to say “Thank Kumon” enough. #SalamatKumon
