Conta de Padeiro

It has been preached at the public, in school and out, by socially conscious educators until most anyone may be pardoned by believing that the rule of life is rule of thumb. Because routine surveying, say, requires only mediocre intelligence, and because surveying is a minor department of applied mathematics, therefore only that mathematics which can be manipulated by rather ordinary people is of any social value.

But no growing economy can be sustained by rule of thumb. If new applications of a furiously expanding science are to be possible, difficult and abstruse mathematical theories far beyond the college level must continue to be developed by those having the requisite talents.

- E. T. Bell, The Development of Mathematics

Resumindo: o que muitos educadores dão a entender é que a "conta de padeiro" é a única matemática que tem alguma importância social.