As I go through my days teaching and preparing I often hear the
questions of "What is math" It is no easier to answer than "What is
culture?" or "What is art?" but because math is based in some definition
of logic people feel like it should be easily explained. The answer
varies far and wide. It is most surely not limited to what we teach in
schools, particularly in middle and secondary education where it is
often distilled into a laundry list of rules. Primary school studies
are closer to the point when they encourage kids to explore numbers and
shapes to identify patterns and relationships. What happens when you
change the numbers? Can you derive certain rules from what you observe?
In
reality, education has failed in some way when we start hearing, "Why
do I need this?" and "What is this?" The former question moreso for it
means someone has lost his curiosity or interest, that a course of study
has become a chore with only an end result. We must strive to find
ways to retain that curiousity and enable learning. This happens when
students really learn and see the horizon of possibility expand with
each step. Something as minute as adding fractions may seem small but
it can have a real and positive impact.
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