NUMBERS have always been a passion for math teacher Janahan Arumugam and now, he is counting on this to get him into the Malaysia Book of Records.
Janahan plans to conduct a 14-hour math webinar, the longest anyone has given lessons online, without stopping.
The attempt, scheduled for Oct 10, is open to all students and is free of charge.
Janahan is at home with large numbers, and not just with math text books. He now tutors more than 5,000 students online, putting in six to eight hours each day to solve mathematical problems faced by his students.
Like all teachers, Janahan’s journey into online teaching began with the Covid-19 pandemic.
He recounted the daunting task of learning how to use online tools to reach his students.
“I had trouble getting through to them as I would in a physical classroom. It was emotionally stressful, and it even brought me to tears,” he told theSun.
But within a few months, with support from friends and students, he managed to get it together.
Janahan conducted his first online class in April last year, with only a few students. Instead of charging them, he decided to forgo the fees.
“I realised that many of the students’
parents had lost their jobs and were struggling to pay bills.”
He said a brochure on his classes was shared widely on social media, and soon after more students signed up.
To extend his reach, Janahan invested some of his savings into buying new equipment and subscribing to Zoom.
However, to keep himself afloat, he finally began to charge each student a small tuition fee.
Janahan said although he misses teaching in a classroom, he has begun to get used to conducting online classes.
“Living with the new normal is an eye-opener. I started exploring various ways to make my classes more fun and engaging.”
The plan to set a new record in online teaching came while he was on a trip to distribute dry goods and essentials to orphanages and homes for underprivileged children in the Klang Valley.
“At a home in Sungai Buloh, I met a student, who tugged at my heartstrings. There was a white flag hanging outside her house, and it looked like it once served as her school uniform.”
Janahan said as a teacher, he felt that it was not only his duty to teach but also to inspire his students, and going for a record-breaking feat would be a way to achieve this.
The second of four children, Janahan has always been good at math since school days.
“I’ve never scored anything less than an ‘A’ in Math or Additional Math,” he said with pride.
He first set his sight on becoming an engineer, which was the reason he put in all his effort to ace math. But as an undergraduate student, he also wanted to be independent so he began giving math classes in the weekends to earn some pocket money. It eventually became his vocation. Janahan also took a shot at publishing when he wrote a book on solving math problems, aptly titled Math Key, in 2019.
The book, which sold 1,000 copies, comes with more than 100 mathematical challenges.
