Elementary mathematics consists of mathematics topics frequently taught at the primary or secondary school levels. The most basic topics in elementary mathematics are arithmetic and geometry. Beginning in the last decades of the 20th century, there has been an increased emphasis on probability and statistics and on problem solving.
In secondary school, the main topics in elementary mathematics are algebra and trigonometry. Calculus, even though it is often taught to advanced secondary school students, is usually considered college level mathematics.
A mastery of elementary mathematics is necessary for many professions, including carpentry, plumbing, and automobile repair, as well as being a prerequisite for all advanced study in mathematics, science, engineering, medicine, business, architecture, and many other fields.
In the United States, there has been considerable concern about the low level of elementary mathematics skills on the part of many students, as compared to students in other developed countries. The No Child Left Behind program was one attempt to address this deficiency, requiring that all American students be tested in elementary mathematics.
Famous quotes containing the words school, secondary, elementary and/or mathematics:
“A school is not a factory. Its raison d’être is to provide opportunity for experience.”
—J.L. (James Lloyd)
“Cloud-clown, blue painter, sun as horn,
Hill-scholar, man that never is,
The bad-bespoken lacker,
Ancestor of Narcissus, prince
Of the secondary men. There are no rocks
And stones, only this imager.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“The longer we live the more we must endure the elementary existence of men and women; and every brave heart must treat society as a child, and never allow it to dictate.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“He taught me the mathematics of anatomy, but he couldn’t teach me the poetry of medicine.... I feel that MacFarland had me on the wrong road, a road that led to knowledge, but not to healing.”
—Philip MacDonald, and Robert Wise. Fettes (Russell Wade)