Ebook: Why Teach Mathematics?: A Focus on General Education

Seven years after its publication in Germany, this book is now available to English readers. In the German-speaking countries, the publication led to intense controversies on the significance, the goals, and the future development of mathematics instruction in schools. Currently, there is much debate in many countries on how to evaluate the findings of such international comparative studies as TIMSS and PISA, debate on which consequences should be taken for designing national curricula and on which reforms of mathematics instruction in schools should be initiated. I hope that this book might provide substantial suggestions beneficial to resolving these and similar issues, for its major concern is twofold: first, to determine the essential characteristics of general education in schools, and, secondly, on the basis of this, to specify the status of mathematics instruction within the framework of general education in schools. Due to the fundamental nature of my argument, I did not consider it necessary to ‘update’ the book superficially for the English edition. Thus, I am presenting the book to the English-speaking public in its original form, the single exception being that I have omitted the original second chapter since that chapter (“Bildung und Allgemeinbildung”) seems to be relevant only to those readers especially interested in German educational debates. Most of those readers, in turn, will belong to the German-speaking public. The omission of this chapter necessitated a few insignificant alterations in the (otherwise unchanged) introduction and at the beginning of the present second (originally, third) chapter.

The cultural and practical significance of mathematics in our society contrasts strikingly with the way adolescents experience mathematics in school. Mathematics teaching, it appears, succeeds in promoting abilities related to systematical and critical thinking, to problem solving, and to formulating rational arguments only for a minority of students.

Why Teach Mathematics presents detailed arguments for seven interconnected objectives of a school system aiming at general education. A specific concept of general education involving these seven objectives serves as a criterion for a critique of the current widespread form of mathematics instruction, identifying its deficits and determining which innovations are necessary. Existing concepts of mathematics teaching are reexamined and assessed in the light of the concept of general education. Finally, the book provides a profile of an alternative mathematics instruction that can, indeed, help to realize a general education.