How to approach a problem.

Life is full of difficulties. That is its nature, even without governments producing their best efforts! How to overocme these difficulties? To do so we must plot our way through to a solution, which involves the steps of understanding the problem, understanding the solution we wish to attain, and the use of logic and reasoning to get us from the start to the finish. Maths should be teaching us these steps. Maths is not just about performing sterile manipulation of numbers, it is about solving problems. It should teach us a robust methodology for approaching problems. Unfortunately, all to often in schools it fails to do that. Judging by the sales of puzzle books, people like to solve problems, but would the same people who buy these books say that they like maths? In many cases the answer would be a resounding "No". This has much to do with the way maths is taught at school. On the other hand Puppet Maths puts the fun back into maths. It makes maths immaginative so that the exercises become maths puzzles rather than maths problems.