Why do people learn mathematics?
Ward-Penny (2016) gives six reasons for mathematics featuring so prominently in school curricula across the world:
- Everyday mathematics and the development of numeracy: One of the fundamental purposes of mathematics education must be to ensure that all learners can apply basic skills of number and measure in commonplace situations.
- Preparation for work and vocational development: Many professions demand aspects of mathematics to be used as part and parcel of the job.
- Thinking skills – habits of mind and personal development: Learning and doing mathematics leads to good thinking habits and develops the brain in a unique and valuable way.
- Citizenship, democracy and social development: Mathematics education supports the growth of critical citizenship. It has the potential to develop a distinctively valuable set of tools that students can understand and use to interrogate many elements of the social and political worlds around them.
- Mathematics as an intellectual pursuit: An aim of mathematics education must also be the continuance of mathematics. Although there are different ways of viewing mathematics itself, it is always seen as an intellectual endeavour that can be considered as one of the crowning achievements of humanity.
- Mathematics as a gatekeeper: This is the most-often quoted reason for learning mathematics, which is very likely to be why Ward-Penny left it until last.