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A Mathematician's Lament: How School Cheats Us Out Of Our Most Fascinating And Imaginative Art Form (2009)

by Paul Lockhart(Favorite Author)

4.27 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

1934137170 (ISBN13: 9781934137178)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Bellevue Literary Press

review 1: The notion that mathematics is an art from seems a bit pretentious. Math is about calculating stuff. Or that's what I thought two days ago.It only takes a few minutes of this book to be completely convinced that the way we are thought mathematics is utterly wrong. Math isn't about calculating stuff but rather spending some nice time with interesting problems. Why does 1+3, 1+3+5 and 1+3+5+7 result in square numbers? Lockhart argues that we need to make math less rigid, less notational and less structured but more fun, engaging and more mathematical."I don't see how it's doing society any good to have it's members walking around with vague memories of algebraic formulas and geometric diagrams, and clear memories of hating them."
review 2: What I hoped for:-the s... moretate of mathematics education is bad. Here's why.-here's an analogy illustrating the sorry state of mathematics education-here's some insight into how mathematicians think about math-here's what we can do to improve math education in America-here are some actionable items that you can employ today to make your children's math education more enjoyable and more thoroughWhat I got:-here's an analogy illustrating the sorry state of math education-here's another analogy-another analogy-math could be so marvelous if we just taught it better-let me sing you the song of the joy of math-if you think sex is fun, you should try math (exaggerating a bit, but not much)-here's a non-practical paragraph about how a teacher in a classroom can make math more interestingThe tone of this review is more negative than I intend. I actually enjoyed reading this book. I'm envious of his math enthusiasm (henceforth coined "mathusiasm".) I'm just disappointed that I learned nothing I can apply to my kids math instruction. I already knew math class was broken. I already knew math guys love math. I was hoping for actionable takeaways and got none. less

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