1 - Mathematics in a Technological Society

Summary

A New Revolution

The world is currently in the throes of a new technological revolution which is having an impact on society at least as great as the Industrial Revolution. Moreover, the speed at which the effects of this ‘Information Revolution’ are being felt is considerably greater than that of its predecessor, as is its range. There are now few, if any, societies anywhere in the world that are unaffected.

It is this fact above all that underlay the decision of ICMI, the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction, to mount the study of which this present publication is the tangible outcome.

Much curriculum development in school mathematics over the past thirty years has taken place in a piecemeal manner. Everyone professionally concerned with mathematics education – and many who are not, including many parents – has his or her own views on school mathematics: what should be taught, how it should be taught, how fast it can be learned, how it should be assessed ‥‥. In order to represent as wide a range of views as practicable, while still being able to formulate guidelines sufficiently specific to be useful, a group of experienced mathematics educators were invited to meet together for six days in Kuwait in February 1986 to consider school mathematics in the 1990s. These participants, drawn from six continents, were selected as having a variety of personal viewpoints and as representing different mathematical and educational traditions.