Freudental H (1991: 1) mengatakan bahwa mathematics look like a plural as it still is in French Les Mathematiques. Indeed, long ago it meant a plural: four arts (liberal ones worth being pursued by free men). Mathematics was the quadrivium, the sum of arithmetic, geometry astronomy and music, held in higher esteem than the (more trivial) trivium: grammar, rhetoric and dialectic. …As far as I am familiar with languages, Ducth is the only one in which the term for mathematics is neither derived from nor resembles the internationally sanctioned Mathematica. The Ducth term was virtually coined by Simon (1548 - 1620): Wiskunde, the science of what is certain. Wis en zeker, sure and certain, is that which does not yield to any doubt, and kunde means, knowledge, theory.

Dua pandangan penting Feudenthal menurut Zulkardi (2000: 3) adalah

a. mathematics as human activity, sehingga peserta didik harus diberi kesempatan untuk belajar melakukan aktivitas matematisasi pada semua topik dalam matematika, dan

b. mathematics must be connected to reality, sehingga matematika harus dekat terhadap peserta didik dan harus dikaitkan dengan situasi kehidupan sehari-hari.

Dengan memperhatikan pandangan tersebut diharapkan pembelajaran matematika bertolak dari masalah-masalah kontekstual dan mengantarkan peserta didik dalam mengaplikasikan materi matematika dalam kehidupan nyata..