数学教学是挑战，责任和机遇。学习数学教学的方式多种多样：对各种数学的研究，数学范围内的教学准备，教育中的正式临床准备，扩展的实习以及作为学生，学习者和问题解决者的连续经验。对具有深厚数学背景的小学老师的需求很大，但对同时关心学生和数学的高质量数学老师的需求更大，对数学有广泛而深刻理解的老师以及完全专业的老师。责任很大，但回报却更大。
Mathematics reveals hidden patterns that help us understand the world around us. Now much more than Arithmetic and Geometry, Mathematics today is a diverse discipline that deals with data, measurements, and observations from science, with inference, deduction, and proof, and with mathematical models of natural phenomena, of human behavior, and of social systems.<br><br>As a practical matter, Mathematics is a science of pattern and order. Its domain is not molecules or cells, but numbers, chance, form, algorithms, and change. As a science of abstract objects, <br><br>Mathematics relies on logic rather than on observation as its standard of truth, yet employs observation, simulation, and even experimentation as means of discovering truth. From: Everybody Counts: A Report to the Nation on the Future of Mathematics Education (c) 1989 National Academy of Sciences.