Everyone knows that something is wrong. The politicians say, “we need higher standards.” The schools say, “we need more money and equipment.“ Educators say one thing, and teachers say another. They are all wrong. The only people who understand what is going on are the ones most often blamed and least often heard: the students. They say, “math class is stupid and boring,” and they are right.
and ends up like this:
How sad that fifth-graders are taught to say “quadrilateral” instead of “four-sided shape”, but are never given a reason to use words like “conjecture”, and “counterexample”. ...
Mathematics is about problems, and problems must be made the focus of a student's mathematical life. Painful and creatively frustrating as it may be, students and their teachers should at all times be engaged in the process—having ideas, not having ideas, discovering patterns, making conjectures, constructing examples and counterexamples, devising arguments, and critiquing each other's work.
The author is a bit crazed, but that just makes it more fun to read. In the unlikely case that you somehow got here while thinking math is stupid and boring, or if you've ever found yourself teaching a stupid, boring math class, take a look.
P.S. As the previous post maybe suggests, I've only recently discovered how to learn math by making conjectures and trying stuff, which is what Lockhart recommends.
In unrelated news, J. is pretty sharp at finding lines of symmetry. I need to give him a circle to play with and see what he says. (evil chuckle)
P.P.S. I got this link from humph, who is also a one-of-a-kind teacher (but not crazed).
