Mystery: One of Six Mathematics Values

The world is facing multiple crises and the tipping points are not far into the future. Part of the solutions for each of these crises involves mathematics, yet many people in western countries reject such solutions. Some world leaders not only reject these solutions but denigrate those who offer them. Virtually everyone who lives in a western society has studied school mathematics for nine to ten years. Given that many aspects of the publicly suggested solutions to these crises use no more than school mathematics to explain what must be done, why so many people reject these solutions out-of-hand is hard to understand. It is likely to mean catastrophe. Clearly school mathematics is having minimal impact on these adults, apart from some of the utilitarian (shopping) mathematics. At present, students leave school thinking of mathematics as a jumble of bits of skills that has little coherence, is mostly unknowable, and gives little insight for the issues with which they and society must grapple. In response to this, I argue in this chapter that there needs to be at least a fundamental reconceptualization of the school mathematics curriculum. I wonder whether, if mathematics values, including that of mystery, were taken seriously, and they became an essential component of the framework that helped give a visible and knowable coherence to school mathematics, then this would be one step in helping graduating students gain a deeper understanding of what mathematics can and cannot do.