Mathematics classes are required of all students in American public schools, from entry through graduation. Why do we, as a society, require students to learn mathematics? Are these reasons good ones, and how should they inform the way mathematics is taught?  Put another way — as many frustrated students have — “Who cares about math and when am I ever going to need it?”

Mathematician John Allen Paulos writes,

“As a mathematician, I’m often challenged to come up with compelling reasons to study mathematics. If the questioner is serious, I reply that there are three reasons or, more accurately, three broad classes of reasons to study mathematics. Only the first and most basic class is practical. It pertains to job skills and the needs of science and technology. The second concerns the understandings that are essential to an informed and effective citizenry. The last class of reasons involves considerations of curiosity, beauty, playfulness, perhaps even transcendence and wisdom”(Mangukiya,P.nd.,para.1 ).