Discovery: Why Is It So Important to Teach Math?

One thing research has taught Jill Baxter is that 2 + 2 does not add up to math proficiency. Math, as it turns out, is a lot more than just the computational skills we’ve all been taught—and a lot more applicable to our lives as well. According to the National Research Council, the abilities to deal with pattern, shape, dimension, quantity—even uncertainty and change—are all mathematical, and provide “the tools for coping with the technology that increasingly penetrates our lives.”1

“We need to help students learn to understand and think strategically,” says Baxter. “And most importantly, we need to help all students experience themselves as capable of posing and solving mathematical problems."

1“On the Shoulders of Giants: New Approaches to Numeracy,” Mathematical Sciences Education Board, National Research Council, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 1990.

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