Math In America Essay

562 Words3 Pages

From the beginning of time to the twenty-first century, technology has advanced drastically and math is a big reason for industrialization / modernization. Our ancestors used math to industrialize and we use math to advanced in technology. But we must ask are self, what is math? Math is the abstract science of number, quantity, and space applied to other instructions and is studied by its own right. Unfortunately, in this generation, more people are struggling with math, especially in the U.S. ; however, Japan and a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 called National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (N.C.T.M.) faced similar situations and have benefitted from it . The presence of math, especially in the U.S., provides a huge problem, but lucky Japan and N.C.T.M. have …show more content…

is very serious and bad. According to the New Times, an article called “Why Do Americans Stink at Math?” by Elizabeth Green, she believes that one of the problems with our education is that teachers don’t have the opportunities to learn from each other. As she wrote the article, she interviewed a Japanese mathematics teacher named Akihiko Takahashi, who became a math teacher because of reading manifestos by the American reformers called the National Council of Teacher of Mathematics (N.C.T.M.) As a math teacher, Takahashi used these influences to change the course math in Japan in the 1980s. As a result, Takahashi is on a mission to revolutionize the way we teach math. In the article, Takahashi states the problems with mathematics in America saying “Most American math classes follow the same pattern, a ritualistic series of steps so ingrained that one researcher termed it a cultural script.” The problem with this idea of repetition is that more students get bored of math because there’s no creativity. Often times, the more you find interest in something, the better you will be at it and Takahashi believes that this should be applied into U.S.