A hole exists in primary and secondary education that open math can fill. Visual mathematics, spatial or visual reasoning, or the application of mathematics to nature is seldom included in math curriculums or public schools. This gives me math angst because spatial thinking in particular is crucial to many jobs from builders and London cabbies to astrophysists and should be more prevalent in print and online than it is, especially in our digital age.
This severe lack of spatial thinking in math curriculums and public schools is detrimental to our children’s futures. Both parents and policymakers have gone to dizzying lengths to improve math scores and rank. Math curriculums, video games, and tutoring centers abound. Too frequently art, music, recess, and physical education have been cut in favor of improving math scores and a school’s rank. And yet despite various promises to improve math proficiency, test scores or ranking have left many children without a love of math, a level of enthusiasm for math, or much beyond basic computational math skills…Read more at OpenSource.com
