The Need for Extending Arithmetical Learnings

Abstract

The current trend toward teaching arithmetic and mathematics for “meaning” and “understanding” coupled with the aim to achieve functional competence on the part of the pupil is causing reverberation among mathematics teachers. Teachers ask, “What and how much can pupils really understand?” and “Shall I teach this topic if I cannot find more than a few poor examples of functional usefulness?” While these questions do not represent the point of view of all teachers, they are indicative of a growing discontent with the achievement in mathematics at both the elementary and secondary school levels. Of course, people in business and industry, as well as representatives of the armed services in the late war, have repeatedly asked that curriculum workers and mathematics teachers do something (almost anything) that will educate the common citizen so that he has at least a modicum of competence in the mathematical situations with which he is repeatedly confronted.