Did you ever read a book called “The Number
Devil” by Hans Magnus Enzensberger? If
you ever see a copy of it, grab it and have a look. In chapter one, Robert, the
hero of the story, meets the Number Devil. The Number Devil explains to Robert
that knowing a little bit of arithmetic, such as addition and subtraction, is
quite useful for when the batteries of your calculator run out but really it
has little to do with mathematics.
How often do teachers fail to grasp the
distinction? How often do we overstate the importance of the “skills” that we
fail to recognize the importance of their application? It’s like a football
team that focuses so much energy on their training sessions that they forget to
turn up to play their game.
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