It's Everywhere! It's Everywhere!

It's Everywhere! It's Everywhere!


Math is everywhere and yet, we may not recognize it
because it doesn't look like the math we did in school. Math in
the world around us sometimes seems invisible. But math is
present in our world all the time--in the workplace, in our
homes, and in life in general.

You may be asking yourself, "How is math everywhere in my
life? I'm not an engineer or an accountant or a computer
expert!" Math is in your life from the time you wake until the
time you go to sleep. You are using math each time you set your
alarm, buy groceries, mix a baby's formula, keep score or time
at an athletic event, wallpaper a room, decide what type of
tennis shoe to buy, or wrap a present. Have you ever asked
yourself, "Did I get the correct change?" or "Do I have enough
gasoline to drive 20 miles?" or "Do I have enough juice to fill
all my children's thermoses for lunch?" or "Do I have enough
bread for the week?" Math is all this and much, much more.


How Do You Feel About Math?


How do you feel about math? Your feelings will have an
impact on how your children think about math and themselves as
mathematicians. Take a few minutes to answer these questions:

* Did you like math in school?

* Do you think anyone can learn math?

* Do you think of math as useful in everyday life?

* Do you believe that most jobs today require math skills?

If you answer "yes" to most of these questions, then you
are probably encouraging your child to think mathematically.
This book contains some ideas that will help reinforce these
positive attitudes about math.


You Can Do It!


If you feel uncomfortable about math, here are some ideas
to think about.

Math is a very important skill, one which we will all need
for the future in our technological world. It is important for
you to encourage your children to think of themselves as
mathematicians who can reason and solve problems.

Math is a subject for all people. Math is not a subject
that men can do better than women. Males and females have
equally strong potential in math.





People in the fine arts also need math. They need math not
only to survive in the world, but each of their areas of
specialty requires an in-depth understanding of some math, from
something as obvious as the size of a canvas, to the beats in
music, to the number of seats in an audience, to
computer-generated artwork.

Calculators and computers require us to be equally strong
in math. Theft presence does not mean there is less need for
knowing math. Calculators demand that people have strong mental
math skills--that they can do math in their heads. A calculator
is only as accurate as the person putting in the numbers. It
can compute; it cannot think! Therefore, we must be the
thinkers. We must know what answers are reasonable and what
answers are outrageously large or small.

Positive attitudes about math are important for our
country. The United States is the only advanced industrial
nation where people are quick to admit that "I am not good in
math." We need to change this attitude, because mathematicians
are a key to our future.

The workplace is rapidly changing. No longer do people
need only the computational skills they once needed in the
1940s. Now workers need to be able to estimate, to communicate
mathematically, and to reason within a mathematical context.
Because our world is so technologically oriented, employees
need to have quick reasoning and problem-solving skills and the
capability to solve problems together. The work force will need
to be confident in math.