Math Education-Is There More To It Than Just Numbers?

Rasha asks: "I am taking a class this semester which discusses different models of the human mind. One topic that has caused much debate is the nature of math education and its goals. I am writing a paper for this class which will attempt to discover what exactly we try to accomplish by teaching math to young students. Are we trying to give them skills or is there more? Is math our attempt to access the more abstract parts of students' brains and develop them? I have sent a survey to a bunch of teachers (mainly elementary and high school) but I am curious what Slashdotters think. I think that most Slashdot readers are probably more mathematically inclined than the average and might have a greater insight into the issues that I'm addressing. Also if anyone knows any previous research on the topic let me know (this is not the focus of the paper though, I'm just curious)." (There's more...)

"Here are some of the questions I sent to the teachers so you can get a feel for what I'm looking for:

• Of all the subjects which is the most important for the development of the student? That is, which subject gives the most skills to the student beyond the actual information taught? Why? What is the goal of teaching Math to children? Is it to give them skills to manipulate numbers or does it accomplish something else (or maybe both)? What are those skills?
• People often say that math teaches abstract reasoning. Is this so, how and why? Could there be a better way to accomplish this?
• With the development of small computers and calculators do you see the role of math education declining? Why or why not?
• Why are children often forced to memorize multiplication tables and do long division?
• Why is it that students who have some deficiency in math are stigmatized as "not so bright" more often than children who fail to do well in other subjects? Conversely, why are children who excel at math considered gifted (more so than other subjects)?"