Mathematics is a Language

Abstract

This is an exciting and challenging time to be a math teacher. Technology has opened the door to teaching and doing mathematics in new and different ways. Because of computers and graphing calculators, mathematics educators are in a continuous process of revising curriculum to take full advantage of available technology. The opportunity to create new curriculum carries with it the necessity to learn new methods and techniques as well as the responsibility to make correct choices. Implied in this process of reworking mathematics curriculum is a basic question: what above all else do we want to teach our students about mathematics? To me the answer is clear; I want my students to know that mathematics is fundamentally a language.