The mathematics curriculum should help sensitize students to the patterns they meet every day and to the mathematical descriptions or models of these patterns and relationships.
Patterns pervade every part of our lives.
This range of examples shows how we experience patterns from child's play to career choice. The toddler separates red blocks from blue blocks. High school students learn that mathematics from algebra to calculus is all about function, which is the pattern of how one number changes into another. Designers of all kinds create beautiful and functional patterns, ranging from the pattern in fabric to the way rooms are arranged in a house to the order of images in a TV commercial. And the physician does her best to decide who is well and who is ill, and recognize the patterns of health.