Scarcity in Abundance

My calculator lay useless on my table. It has not been charged with the energy coming from the sun. When I bought this second-hand from my sister, it was this feature that made me buy it. I asked if it has changeable battery and she explained that the source of its battery is the sun.

I forgot that it needs to be charged regularly. There is abundant source of energy that will charge my calculator but I was not able to charge it.

At night, I use the flashlight of the phone to charge and use it. But I have to maintain the light, otherwise, it will turn off.

I am one who has become very dependent with this device. I use it when I make assignment. I use it to compute for my expenses. I use it every time I am just solving math problems randomly.

Even until now, I neglect charging it. Hehe. Okay, I’ll just bring it out under the sun while I am writing this.

Sometimes, we see the paradox of scarcity in abundance. This is just the first thing which came to mind to name what is with my neglecting to charge my calculator.

When you search the net you will read a lot of explanation of what scarcity in abundance means. But I will not dwell on explaining those. It makes my head spin to think about economics right at this moment.

So let me just go on with what I mean here than we may have abundant source but then we make it scarce by not doing anything. Got what I mean?

Like with the case of my calculator, I know there are a lot of sources for charging but I did not charge it. Making the calculator to be useless at emergency times.

I rush to get my calculator only to put it down because it has not been charged. And instead of charging it so I will have something to use in the future, I just put it down and use the calculator of my phone. So this time, I brought the calculator outside to charge.

Good thing that the kids are not roaming around during this time. if not, they might believe that the calculator was abandoned and that they found an expensive commodity. Though I only bought the thing second-hand with lower price.

 Anyway, with regards to the calculator, I find it amusing that some students can’t use the thing. The reason is that they do not know how to use it. I explain time and time again that they also needed to know the basic concepts of how to execute the operations. They see a combination of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division and they get confused.

I then take it as a chance to explain the basic concepts. I sometimes get overwhelmed on what I myself teach. Even the most basic sometimes are being forgotten. Fortunately, you also encounter students who are very bright and has deep appreciation of the subjects in Math.

Good thing a lot of devices supports the natural display wherein you just have to input the numbers and symbols as they appear in the text. Just press equal and tada! Answer is given. The probability of committing errors has decreased.

Before the pandemic, we sometimes use a whole session just to learn about the use of students’ calculators. They have different devices so some take a bit longer that others to be figured out. But it was fun dealing with various models. So I’ve become an instructor of calculators. Hehehe.

But the key there is to always use the device. I myself can’t use a calculator I just obtained if I am not yet familiar with its commands. I need to always familiarize myself in order to maximize its use. There are weird calculators, and there are easy to use. There are those seemingly useless but when you experiment, the functions are the same with the rest.

Now that it is pandemic, we aren’t meeting face to face so I am thinking of giving a tutorial with regards to use of calculator in the form of a walk thru. It may be an arduous task but for the sake of letting students love the subject. Well, they have their initiative to explore but sometimes, these walk through sessions are also needed.

Forgive me for my terms. I seem to have lost touch of my English. Hehehe. But I do hope you still got what I wanted to say.