Importance of Mathematics in Daily Life and to Ordinary People
This is an essay about the importance of mathematics in dialy life and to ordinary people. I know fully well that not many people love mathematics. Among students, math is either a difficult or boring subject. It’s not even easy for teachers to make their students love math.
In addition, not many people realize that mathematics is all around us and it’s quite impossible to live without mathematics in our daily life. In fact, mathematics is instrumental in aiding in the development of computer games, sophisticated cell phones like Blackberry Bold 9000 and other technologies like robotics. Mathematics in daily life is important and with this in mind, I hope I can get this message across to readers of this blog especially to students and ordinary people who practically have no idea why math should be studied in school. Let’s enjoy mathematics together. 
They also say that most people regard it as an essential subject, together with the mother tongue, and that it would be very difficult to live a normal life in the twentieth century (at least in the western world) without making use of any mathematics.
The usefulness of mathematics is perceived in different ways. For many it is seen in terms of the arithmetic skills which are needed for use at home or in the office or workshop; some see mathematics as the basis of scientific development and modern technology; some emphasise the increasing use of mathematical techniques as a management tool in commerce and industry (Cockroft 1982, p. 1).
And further:
A second important reason for teaching mathematics must be its importance and usefulness in many other fields. It is fundamental to the study of the physical sciences and of engineering of all kinds. It is increasingly being used in medicine and the biological sciences, in geography and economics, in business and management studies. It is essential to the operations of industry and commerce in both office and workshop (Cockroft 1982, p. 2).
They provide a quite thorough discussion on the usefulness of mathematics, and how much mathematics one actually needs to know in adult life. To sum up what mathematical skills we actually need in everyday life, they say:
In the preceding chapters we have shown that, in broad terms, it is possible to sum up much of the mathematical requirement for adult life as ’a feeling for number’ and much of the mathematical need for employment as ’a feeling for measurement’ (Cockroft 1982, p. 66).
But they also conclude that they do not want to judge mathematical activity in school on the idea of practical use alone. This is an important view, shared by many teachers. Mathematics isn’t only about what is useful and what is connected to everyday life. Mathematical puzzles, games and problem solving activities are also important aspects of the subject. They conclude that mathematics should be presented as a subject both to use and to enjoy (Cockroft 1982, p. 67).
Practical tasks and pupil activities are also highlighted, and they underline that these ideas are certainly not new, as we have also seen in the outline of the historical development of Norwegian curricula above. All children need to experience practical work related to the activities of everyday life. They clearly state that pupils cannot be expected to have the ability to make use of mathematics in everyday life situations, unless they have had the opportunity to experience these situations for themselves in school (Cockroft 1982, pp. 83-87).
When the children first come to school, the mathematics they use is about applications. When they apply the mathematical knowledge on practical situations, they build up an ownership and a sense of independence towards mathematics. The pupils therefore work with exploring and investigating mathematics, but this depends on the teacher:
The extent to which children are enabled to work in this way will depend a great deal on the teacher’s own awareness of the ways in which mathematics can be used in the classroom and in everyday life (Cockroft 1982, p. 94).
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