Importance of Mathematical

Communication and Problem

Solving In Everyday Society
Why Mathematics is Crucial Learning and Teaching in School
_________________________________________________
Michael Carway

ABSTRACT
Readers will learn how important math truly is and why it is so important
to learn about in school. It plays a key role in our everyday lives. I discuss
how math teaches us how to compare different proportions, sizes,
shapes, and colors and how to numerically problem solve with numerous
different real-life examples. Some examples include telling time, keeping
track of the score of a sport game, and remembering how many times a
particular event took place.

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Math is considered one of the most boring and useless studies by many different
people in todays world. Some students, novelists, historians, and other people from
various professions could honestly care less about mathematics. They just hate its
tediousness and believe it is never used in any kind of typical day. However, it is perhaps
one of the most important subjects that teaches people how to problem solve in everyday
situations.
Have you ever truly thought of how many times in an average day you are
approached with a mathematical problem that you have the skills to solve? How often do
you go grocery shopping with coupons and figure out in your head how much money you
owe with the discounts to double-check the total cost you need to pay? Do you ever limit
the amount of money you can spend in a week to try and save up and need to figure out
how much of it needs to go to fixed expenses like transportation and rent? How often do
you go out to dinner with friends and need to determine how much money you need to tip
if it is not included on the bill? We use math every single day and it plays a key part in
how our earth goes round.
Jan Greenburg, a writer for the Early Head Start National Resource Center in
Washington, D.C., claims that humans start developing their math skills during infancy.
In her article, More, All Gone, Empty, Full: Math Talk Every Day in Every Way, she
describes a scene involving a caretaker and a baby. The caretaker is feeding the baby
food from a bowl, and when he stops feeding her at one point, the baby signals that she
wants more food. When all the food is gone, the caretaker shows the baby the empty
bowl, and the baby gives him a smile in return (Greenburg, 2012). Now, some people
may question, What does a lack of food have anything to do with developing math skills?

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The baby was able to recognize that there was no more food left in the bowl; that is the
bowl went from full to empty. The total amount of food went from 100% to 0%, and we
can see the babys understanding of that through the way she pleasingly reacted when
she was shown the empty bowl. It can be very shocking and surprising to believe, but this
happens all the time as well; we just dont pay attention to it. Try to recall the playpens
you use to play in when you were a toddler. At that age, we were capable of putting certain
shapes into matching holes of the same shape, sort different colored blocks based on
their colors, count the amount of toy cars you have, and so on and so on. The list is
endless!
We very often underestimate our cognition at a young age. Nonetheless, we
casually use math, specifically algebra, during childhood and adolescence as well.
Greenburg provides two more examples of everyday math for us in her article: keeping
track of each teams score in a sport and being commanded to go from point A to point B
(2012). Lets say you are watching a football game. If one team has successfully scored
three touchdowns followed by two field goals, you add the three touchdowns together
which are worth 6 points each and an additional two points for the field goals. That makes
a total of 20 points. Traveling also involves math because you need to have a sense of
direction, time, and speed in order to reach your destination. For instance, if you are
traveling at a constant speed of 50 miles per hour and your destination is 20 miles away,
you will arrive in two-fifths of an hour or 24 minutes. America is one of the sportiest
countries in the world and math helps you understand which team is winning.
Furthermore, every single human being has to use their math skills to judge how long it
would take him or her to get to their destination by car, train, plane, foot, you name it. We

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were born with feet to go to different places, so math is extraordinarily important for us to
reach our classes, meetings, appointments, lunch dates, etc. on time.
Another point Greenburg makes involves math being a part of a normal, casual
conversation. Any reference of numbers and quantities deal with math as well
(Greenburg, 2012). Lets say that your mom or your dad is constantly nagging you to
clean your room or do your chores around the house just like any typical parent. When
they had enough of you not listening and give you an ultimatum, You are going to do it
right after dinner or I am taking away the TV for the rest of the week. I shouldnt have to
remind you five times! We never notice it, but our brains are constantly counting different
quantities, and these quantities can be anything! That includes telling a friend you went
to Disney World twice, counting down the rest of the days in the school year, or recalling
that you ran three miles for soccer practice. The list is, again, endless!
Mathematics educator and author John A. Van de Walle also believes that math is
a very important school subject. He believes that it teaches us how to approach and solve
problems out in the real world. In his textbook Elementary and Middle School
Mathematics: Teaching Developmentally Fifth Edition, Van de Welle describes our
algebraic reasoning as one of the key components to developing ones mathematical
skills. Two important concepts of our algebraic reasoning skills include patterns and
scales. Van de Walle notes that even kindergarteners can recognize mere repetitive
patterns. He uses different figures that illustrate repeated images. For example, one
pattern consists of a triangle followed by a rectangle followed by two circles which we are
capable of identifying at a young age (Van de Walle, 2004, p. 418). We can witness
patterns outside of the classroom, too, like our understanding that yellow follows green,

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red follows yellow, and green follows red in a traffic light, the repeated rhythms in a song,
recognizing that gray clouds often lead to rain, and many more.
Regarding to scales, we can also distinguish different objects weights. Another
figure in the textbook shows two scales that both maintain equilibrium. One of the scales
has one red ball on one plate and three yellow cubes on the other plate. The other scale
has two red balls on one plate and one green cylinder opposing it. Comparing each scale,
we can determine that the green cylinder is the heaviest object, the yellow cube is the
lightest object, and the red ball weighs somewhere in between the cylinder and the cube
(Van de Walle, 2004). Assume that you have two identical glass cups each holding a
different liquid, one can be a relatively opaque orange and one can be solid red. You can
guess which liquid is heavier than the other by simply lifting one of them up and judging
which takes more effort to pick up. We can also see scales proportionally. If you go to the
zoo and see a small elephant next to a big elephant, you can infer that the small elephant
is younger than the big elephant. If you see a child walking down the street with a midaged woman, you can guess that the woman is the childs mother. Once again, there is
an infinite number of examples.
Last but certainly not least, numerical problem solving is probably the most useful
topic we learn in school. We see them everywhere! If you are waiting in an airport terminal
and want to figure out how much time you have left until your plane leaves at 4:00 pm
and it is currently 1:00 in the afternoon, you can simply subtract 1:00, the current time,
from 4:00, the departure time, which gives you three hours to spare and relax. If you only
have $18.00 worth of cash in your wallet and you need $30.00 to pay for your food that
is getting delivered, you can figure out that you need $12.00 more dollars to pay the bill

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and can go to a local ATM to withdraw some money before the food gets delivered.
Suppose that your Karla went apple picking and brought home a fifteen apples that she
wants to share with her friends including you. She tells you that she gave three to
Caroline, two to Kelly, and five to Charlie. You can find out that she has five apples left
for you by adding up Caroline, Kelly, and Charlies apples and subtracting them from
fifteen. By using your mathematical skills, you can solve any numerical problem that
comes your way.
After researching and brainstorming all of these possible skills that math offers us,
I can easily say I cannot wait to be a math teacher. When I first decided that I wanted to
be a math teacher, the only legitimate reasons were the fact that I am an exceptional
math student, especially at algebra, it is was always fun to me, and I want to have a
positive impact on people in some way. Now I have been enlightened that without math,
we would have nothing. Math makes up our societys foundations and building blocks that
we can build upon the more developed our skills become. Math is what turns the rusty
gears in our heads and keeps us going. Math holds such a vital part of our world, and it
is essential to teach in school. I hope to show my future students how important math can
truly be.

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Works Cited
Greenberg, J. (2012). More, All Gone, Empty, Full: Math Talk Every Day in Every Way. YC Young
Children, 67(3), 62-64. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/42731176
Van De Walle, J. A. (2004). Elementary and Middle School Mathematics: Teaching Developmentally Fifth Edition. New York, New York: Pearson Education, Inc.