Why Study Mathematics

2006 ◽  
Vol 100 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-9
Author(s):  
F. L. Wren
Keyword(s):  
Mathematics Teacher ◽  
Recreational Activities ◽  
Convincing Argument ◽  
The One

Why should anyone study mathematics? This type of question is not peculiar to mathematics nor to the field of education. Let us look at a corresponding situation in the field of business. Suppose an automobile salesman attempts to sell a car, what are some of the questions he has to answer? The buyer wants to know the make of the car and compares it with other makes from the standpoint of beauty, service, and economy. Before the sale can be made the salesman must present convincing argument on all of these points and surely no real salesman will attempt such a task without being thoroughly familiar with the car himself. While the analogy may not be complete from the case of the automobile salesman to that of the teacher of mathematics, yet it is certainly true that the teachers of mathematics are primarily the ones who should be able to “sell” mathematics to the “doubting public.” There are two questions that every mathematics teacher should be able to answer if he is to be able to give an intelligent answer to the one already proposed: they are “What is mathematics?” and “What relation does mathematics have to the cultural, industrial, and recreational activities of a progressive civilization?”

Why Study Mathematics?

1931 ◽  
Vol 24 (8) ◽  
pp. 473-482
Author(s):  
F. L. Wren
Keyword(s):  
Mathematics Teacher ◽  
Recreational Activities ◽  
Convincing Argument ◽  
The One

Why should anyone study mathematics? This type of question is not peculiar to mathematics nor to the field of education. Let us look at a corresponding situation in the field of business. Suppose an automobile salesman attempts to sell a car, what are some of the questions he has to answer? The buyer wants to know the make of the car and compares it with other makes from the standpoint of beauty, service, and economy. Before the sale can be made the salesman must present convincing argument on all of these points and surely no real salesman will attempt such a task without being thoroughly familiar with the car himself. While the analogy may not be complete from the case of the automobile salesman to that of the teacher of mathematics, yet it is certainly true that the teachers of mathematics are primarily the ones who should be able to “sell” mathematics to the “doubting public.” There are two questions that every mathematics teacher should be able to answer if be is to be able to give an intelligent answer to the one already proposed : they are “What is mathematics?” and “What relation does mathematics have to the cultural, industrial, and recreational activities of a progressive civilization?”

When Mathematics Teacher Educators Come Under Attack

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 68-74
Author(s):  
Rochelle Gutiérrez
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Mathematics Education ◽  
Mathematics Teacher ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Mathematics Teacher Education ◽  
Professional Organizations ◽  
Mathematics Teacher Educators ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
The One ◽  
Historical Moment

We are in an interesting historical moment in mathematics teacher education. On the one and, there is greater realization within our field of the connections between systems of power and mathematics (O'Neil, 2016). We are starting to acknowledge how mathematics education can be viewed as dehumanizing for both students and teachers as well as what might constitute rehumanizing practices (Gutiérrez, in press). Our professional organizations are calling for teachers to move beyond simplistic notions of equity to understand these power dimensions and challenge the system on behalf of (and in community with) Black,1 Indigenous,2 and Latinx3 students in particular

In the shadow of sociology: Bateson through the lens of Durkheim

2020 ◽  
pp. 1468795X2094434
Author(s):  
Jørn Bjerre
Keyword(s):  
Modern Philosophy ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Current Mode ◽  
Sociological Perspective ◽  
Gregory Bateson ◽  
Convincing Argument ◽  
Critical Understanding ◽  
The One ◽  
Classical Sociology

Gregory Bateson developed his transdisciplinary thinking in the shadow of sociology, but his ideas are not generally viewed as part of the field of classical sociology. This article will explain this exclusion by arguing that Bateson’s way of theorising – while attempting to make progress in the understanding of reality – returns to ideas that were already rejected within the field in which he first worked. Furthermore, as a reading of Bateson through the lens of Durkheim will show, Bateson’s theories fail to provide a better understanding of social reality than those of his predecessors. This type of critical analysis demonstrates the weakness of some of Bateson’s central claims and contributes to a more in-depth understanding and reassessment of his ideas from a sociological perspective. Pointing out that Bateson’s critique of the modern worldview is based on a pre-critical and pre-modern philosophy of wholeness is not to invalidate Bateson’s foundational intuition that our current mode of thinking challenges our chances of surviving as a species. However, in order to make a theoretically convincing argument concerning how our thinking challenges our survival, a more critical understanding of the relation between mind and society than the one Bateson offers is required.

Mathematics Recreations

1953 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 185-192
Keyword(s):  
Secondary Schools ◽  
Mathematics Teacher ◽  
Classroom Instruction ◽  
Actual Practice ◽  
Mathematical Education ◽  
Recreational Activities ◽  
Mathematical Instruction ◽  
Illustrative Material

In the January 1953 issue of The Mathematics Teacher this department offered some observations concerning some recreational activities which may be associated with certain specific properties of the principles of system of numeration. Generally, the properties of systems of numeration are not included in the scope of mathematical instruction in the secondary schools. This is unfortunate if not deplorable. Teachers, teachers of teachers, textbook authors, proponents of considerations of pedagogical theories in mathematical education, all of them proclaim their allegiance to the principle that proper and interesting illustrative material is a sine qua non of good classroom instruction. The relation between these proclamations and actual practice may be non-linearly inversely proportional.

Continued Fractions and “Leap” Years

1970 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-27
Author(s):  
Bernard Rasof
Keyword(s):  
Mathematics Teacher ◽  
Continued Fractions ◽  
National Bureau ◽  
Mathematical Functions ◽  
Engineering And Technology ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Expository Paper ◽  
The One

The January 1968 issue of The Mathematics Teacher contained a fas cinating expository paper on “Continued Fractions.”1 It does not appear to be generally known that, until about 30 years ago, the subject called “continued fractions” was the province of a handful of “pure” mathematicians who could not abide the countless applications of their beloved discipline to science, engineering, and technology, and occupied themselves with continued fractions because they believed this to be the one area of mathematics which had no possible applications. The employment of continued fractions in other branches of mathematics was not considered to be applications; that there are many of these, however, can be seen from only a cursory glance through the National Bureau of Standards Handbook of Mathematical Functions.2

scholarly journals Improving Students’ Motor Activity as a Motivational Orientation towards a Healthy Lifestyle

2017 ◽  
pp. 124-129
Author(s):  
Maksym Yachniuk ◽  
Iryna Yachniuk ◽  
Yurii Yachniuk
Keyword(s):  
Physical Activity ◽  
Healthy Lifestyle ◽  
Free Time ◽  
Motivational Orientation ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Cultural Environment ◽  
Special Equipment ◽  
Recreational Activities ◽  
National University ◽  
The One

An individual’s physical activity is the result of human biological needs which are formed due to the interaction with the environment. But the problem itself does not acknowledge the nature of the individual’s activity because it may be solved with the help of different things or methods. The satisfying feature is defined when an individual starts to act. Consequently the research has been conducted among the students of the Chernivtsi National University. The aim of the research was to learn about the motivation for the improvement of recreational activities. As a result of the research it turned out how youth usually spend their free time after studying, why students want to train, which factors encourage them to use recreational activities, what reasons hinder them in their efforts to do the chosen recreationally curative activities and what effect they want to have on such trainings. Moreover, it was found that the majority of students want to do recreational activities although they have some obstacles to train systematically. Furthermore it was ascertained that the preference is given to the free time activities which do not require special equipment and significant costs. According to the results of the sociological research, we’ve discovered the actual motives that encourage students to the recreationally curative activities. It is worth saying a physical activity is the priority among different factors which have an influence on a young person’s health and efficiency. The analyzed data gives reasons to affirm that on the one hand students’ free time depends on demographical changes, social and cultural environment and on the other hand it is linked to the system of the orientation of their values, needs and interests.

scholarly journals Investigation of Mathematics Teacher Candidates’ Conceptual Structures about “Measurement” through Word Association Test: The Example of Turkey

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (12) ◽  
pp. 162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmet Erdogan
Keyword(s):  
Mathematics Teacher ◽  
Teacher Candidates ◽  
Word Association ◽  
Association Test ◽  
Word Association Test ◽  
Conceptual Structures ◽  
Measurement And Evaluation ◽  
The One ◽  
Study Participants ◽  
Free Word

The purpose of this research is to determine mathematics teacher candidates’ conceptual structures about the concept of “measurement” that is the one of the important learning fields of mathematics. Qualitative research method was used in this study. Participants of this study were 58 mathematics teacher candidates studying in one of the public universities in Turkey. The free word-association test was used as data collection tool. The “Measurement” stimulus concept was presented to mathematics teacher candidates through the free word-association test. A total of 118 response words obtained from the test have been arranged in frequency tables. The response words divided into 9 categories with the help of content analysis. A network of concepts has been created that the conceptual structures of mathematics teacher candidates about “measurement” using the frequencies and categories of response words. The findings of this study indicates that the response words with the highest frequency of the mathematics teacher candidates related to the “measurement” stimulus word are evaluation, exam, length, meter, test, etc. and the categories of response words are meaning of measurement, measurement and evaluation lesson, measurement learning domain, measurement in daily life, measurement units, etc.

What is Going on in Your School?: Challenge to the gifted

1955 ◽  
Vol 48 (6) ◽  
pp. 434-435
Author(s):  
Norman Clark
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Mathematics Teacher ◽  
Talent Search ◽  
National Science ◽  
Lake Washington ◽  
Washington High School ◽  
Science Clubs ◽  
The One

When Dick Fiddler, a senior at Lake Washington High School, was named one of the 40 winners in the National Science Talent Search no one was more pleased—or less surprised—than Jim McKeehan, Dick's mathematics teacher. And McKeehan was justly proud: concurrent with the announcement came a letter of congratulation from the Science Clubs of America stating that Dick had listed his teacher as “the one person most influential in the development of my career.”

“The Citadel Within”: Washington Irving and the Search for Literary Vocation

Prospects ◽  
1978 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 371-417
Author(s):  
Joy S. Kasson
Keyword(s):  
American Literature ◽  
New World ◽  
Aesthetic Response ◽  
Washington Irving ◽  
Quarter Century ◽  
Old World ◽  
Convincing Argument ◽  
Critical Success ◽  
The One

From his own time to the present, Washington Irving has seemed to many observers to embody the ambiguities of the American aesthetic response to Europe. The critical success of The Sketch Book, published in 1819–20, offered the first important reversal to the one-way flow of culture across the Atlantic. Through the persona of Geoffrey Crayon, genteel, literate observer of Old World customs, Irving offered a convincing argument that an American could be a man of letters, that a “demi-savage” from the New World wilderness could hold “a feather in his hand, instead of on his head.” Yet Irving's very success in conforming to European literary standards left him open to charges of imitativeness and overrefinement; critics complained that his work was too Anglicized and prettified, that he sold his native birthright for the pottage of international acclaim. More recent commentators have attempted to rescue Crayon for American literature, stressing Irving's humor, his incorporation of native materials, and his ties to the landscape. Both sides of the argument, however, tend to focus on Irving as he presented himself at the end of his career, after a quarter-century of elaboration on Geoffrey Crayon. By the time Irving published the Author's Revised Version of his works in 1848, a shelf full of books affirmed his identity as the gentle wanderer, graceful observer, resident of the Alhambra, and spectator at Bracebridge Hall.

New format For the Mathematics Teacher

1936 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 5
Author(s):  
W. D. Reeve
Keyword(s):  
Mathematics Teachers ◽  
Mathematics Teacher ◽  
Financial Support ◽  
Reading Process ◽  
National Council ◽  
The One

With this issue, The Mathematics Teacher is changed in form and in size. The new format enables us to give our readers more material and to present it in a more desirable way. This is done by increasing the size of the page so as to permit two columns of printed matter to appear. This double column effect makes the reading process easier and the artistic effect better. Along with this change in format, it is hoped that we shall be able to introduce other new features that will make the magazine more attractive and helpful to teachers of mathematics. What we can ultimately do to improve the magazine will depend largely upon the financial support the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics can get from those in whose interest the magazine is published eight times each year. With renewed efforts on the part of our present membership we should be able to secure many new subscribers. No meeting of mathematics teachers should be held without someone's taking the responsibility of presenting the case for the Mathematics Teacher. Subscription blanks for use at such meetings like the one appearing as the first advertisement of t his issue can be had postpaid for the asking. The blanks also give a description of the National Council Year-books which now constitute an essential part of the library of many teachers of mathematics. We shall be glad to have the comments of our readers on the new format and also any suggestions for the fur ther improvement of the magazine along any particular line.

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