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From: They're Counting on Us: A parent's guide to mathematics education
Mention mathematics and many of us shudder. We remember hours of
boring, redundant arithmetic exercises. For many of us, math was not
about thinking through a problem. It was about trying to remember which
rule to use; we endured it and forgot it quickly after exams.
Times have changed. The mathematics needed today is different from what
our parents needed a generation ago. In our everyday lives, we manage
resources, track schedules, make decisions based on data and
probabilities, and much more. We work with calculators, computers, and
other technologies that weren't even around when most of us were in
school. The use of technology is growing at an increasing rate and
radically changing the way we work. Most of tomorrow's jobs will
require a deeper and wider understanding of mathematics than ever
before.
How can we, parents and educators, prepare California students for the changing job market? We
must learn the questions to ask about mathematics instruction in our
schools. Are our children—girls and boys, from all racial, ethnic, and
economic backgrounds—getting the instruction and preparation they need
to be successful? Just how rigorous is the program at our child's
school? Does the curriculum deal not only with number concepts and
operations, but also with using number sense and problem solving to
produce results for realistic and challenging assignments? Are students
expected to make logical arguments and present evidence to support
their conclusion? Are they expected to persevere even—or
especially—when they don't have any standard rules that apply to their
task?
We ask these questions because we need a much more intensive
mathematics program than we had in school. School mathematics at every
level—including college—is changing because of the demands of the
workplace. Students are preparing for jobs where they will analyze data
and make decisions using mathematical models. Both the organization and
interpretation of statistical data are now part of many jobs, and
spatial concepts play critical roles in many compute-based fields that
did not exist fifteen years ago.
Mathematics is their key to the future. Working together, we can make the goal of improving mathematics instruction a reality.
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This Page was last updated: Friday, February 27, 2004 at 11:57:09 AM
This page was originally posted: 5/23/2001; 3:10:07 PM.
Copyright 2008 cmcmath
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