Social Needs in Secondary Mathematics Education.
Christine Keitel · for the learning of mathematics · 1986
Mathematics education and computer education It is an amazing fact that today we are concerned about a question which 20 years ago nobody would have thought of.T On the contrary, more and better mathematics for all students and all grades was the paramount goal at that time; and that students would need it, and that society would need it, was beyond any doubt. Today we are startled that many people no longer seem willing to take that goal for granted, and we are aware of our own uneasiness in the matter. But the menace behind it all, which actually makes the question acute, is the growth of computer technology and its penetration into the schools. Many seemingly unrefutable justifications for school mathematics now look weak and much less convincing. In the USA computer education has partly replaced secondary mathematics and continues to expand. In several European countries informatics has been or is being established in the curriculum as a competitor to mathematics. It is not necessary to recall the significance of computer technology in any detail here; I content myself with quoting a few sentences by M.F. Atiyah.