Why Does Learning Elementary Algebra Matter?

Abstract

Upper secondary education is a fundamental formative enclave in the instruction of millions of individuals since it promotes access to higher education. The mathematics studied there has a functional and more than immediate relationship with the mathematics with which professionals will be trained and, in this context, elementary algebra plays an important educational role by stimulating the imagination through its symbolism and the ideas it contains. In this article we note its relevance and competence in the professional world, as well as its necessity in ordinary life as a cultural stimulus, which favors a convenient understanding of the world that can begin to be solved in an adequate way from the classroom, using technological tools now at hand, creating stimulating problems that develop creativity through the practical use of algebra, as physicists and engineers do.

Translated by Mario Alejandro López de Luna.