Math Education Critique
Discussions criticize how mathematics is taught in schools, focusing on rote memorization and procedural drills instead of fostering understanding, creativity, and problem-solving, often referencing Paul Lockhart's 'A Mathematician's Lament'.
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It's cargo cult mathematics.People who understand math can do X, Y, and Z.Therefore we should make sure children can do X, Y, and Z.Then they'll understand math too!
I think you this will interest you. Its a mathematician's lament on how the current system of teaching math is wrong.https://www.maa.org/external_archive/devlin/LockhartsLament....
Recent and related:Why won’t anyone teach me math? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30302079 - Feb 2022 (670 comments)
I think we limited "Math" to the wrong things in school.
relevant: https://worrydream.com/refs/Lockhart_2002_-_A_Mathematician'...
I think maybe you mean "don't send your kids to an _American_ school if you can avoid it". Although I have no personal experience with the American school system, I would say that there are many schools in the world that adhere, to some degree, to your 'how not to teach mathematics'. I went to a public school in Europe and have had plenty of enthusiastic teachers that also tried to deliver the beauty of mathematics.
I'm not even convinced that schools teach math as a tool. Too few students are aware of the raw power that learning how to think mathematically and use mathematical knowledge as a problem-solving tool gives them. It provides new insight into fields as diverse as visual art and as applicable as physics. The latter of which only became the potent subject it is today after being mathematized.Forget about about students, there are career programmers out there who only began their careers aft
Reminds me of A Mathematician's Lament. https://www.maa.org/sites/default/files/pdf/devlin/Lockharts...
"Because that's the way it is" describes my entire mathematics education. It didn't work for me, and I can't help but think there has to be a better way.
Yes. Usually, though, when someone complains about the teaching of mathematics they say we focus too much on how to do the operations and not enough on why they work the way they do. I agree it is much easier to understand why after knowing how.