2. The Mission of Mathematics
Regents School of Austin
August 2013

3. Why do we teach math at Regents?
Why is mathematics a core component of nearly every educational system?
Why do students need to learn math?
Why do Regents’ students need to learn math?
In what ways is “Regents math” the same as mathematics at any typical school?
In what ways is “Regents math” different from mathematics at any typical school?

4. Regents Mission Statement:
The mission of Regents School is to provide a classical and Christian education, founded upon and informed by a Christian worldview, that equips students to know, love and practice that which is true, good and beautiful, and challenges them to strive for excellence as they live purposefully and intelligently in the service of God and man.

5. Math is Beautiful
“The mathematician’s patterns, like the painter's or the poet's, must be beautiful; the ideas, like the colors or the words, must fit together in a harmonious way. Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics.“
~ G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician’s Apology
“The mathematical sciences particularly exhibit order, symmetry, and limitation; these are the greatest forms of the beautiful.”
~ Aristotle

6. Math is Beautiful

7. Math is True
“To all of us who hold the Christian belief that God is truth, anything that is true is a fact about God, and mathematics is a branch of theology.”
~Hilda Phoebe Hudson

8. Math is Good?
At its core, mathematics is a virtuous activity – not a pleasure of the intellectual elite

9. Math is Good?
Math is…
Confusing
Stressful
Too abstract
Not applicable to me
Uninteresting
The complete opposite of all that is good and holy
Our perspective needs to be that mathematics is at its core a virtuous activity and its enjoyment is not reserved for the “intellectual elite”

10. Math is Good?
"The chief aim of all investigations of the external world should be to discover the rational order and harmony which has been imposed on it by God and which He revealed to us in the language of mathematics.“
“I was merely thinking God's thoughts after Him. Since we astronomers are priests of the highest God in regard to the book of nature, it benefits us to be thoughtful, not of the glory of our minds, but rather, above all else, of the glory of God.”
~ Johannes Kepler

11. Math is Good

12. The Mission of Mathematics
The mission of mathematics, as informed by a Christian worldview, is to: increase our versatility in worship by…
Refining our sinfully broken minds through a contemplation of the creation God called ‘good’
Engaging us in the difficult yet worthwhile pursuit of the ideal by which critical thought may be judged
Instilling within us a sense of awe in communing with the Creator.

13. The Good Man Speaking Well
Math is Good
Math is Language
The Foundation is Here in Grammar

14. Resources