Meaning in Mathematics Education

Abstract

Educators would certainly agree that mathematics education should be meaningful to the student-and I am no exception. But what could the meaning of meaningful be? Here one finds a variety of opinions. One attempt to insert meaning into mathematics education took place as part of the curriculum reform movement in the 1960s. The drill and practice of traditional mathematics teaching was to be replaced by real understanding, which was interpreted as understanding logical relationships between mathematical terms. Meaning was to be established in terms of "logical honesty". If students were enabled to see structural connections behind algorithms, then more meaning would be brought into the classroom