Mathematician Lament
Paul Lockhart wrote a paper criticizing the current model for mathematic education and how it is inevitably failing to actually teach students math. He states that math should actually be considered a part of the arts (Paul Lockhart pg.3), the reason that students not only lack a sense of interest but an inability to properly learn math is because it isn 't treated as an art. The current practice of giving students overly complicated processes to learn math when in actuality they will use little to none of them in their lives in highly impractical and "destroys curiosity" (Lockhart, Pg.2). He believes that if students were taught math through examples pertaining to actual life use they would not only understand the …show more content…
The current reasoning given for why people should learn math such as algebra is that it will be useful in their lives, when in actuality it will likely not be used, especially in the context upon which it is taught to students. The only way to make math a subject that can not only be learned by students but can also engage their creativity, according to Lockhart, is by using problems that help students to use their imagination. Best done by things like story problems, because the students can visually imagine the problem putting it in a different context. Letting the students realize the actual relevance and use of math rather than telling them how useful it is through a series of problems and formulas that don 't actually relate to their actual lives creates and interest in math rather than the more common apathetic attitude many students have for …show more content…
I 've gone through the education system for 14 years now and doing so I I 've realized that the issues he confronts in his paper are not limited to just math. The American education model has become a system in which students are no longer encouraged to learn, but to simply repeat the information given to them on pieces of paper and remember long enough to take a test to get into college or they risk not having a future. The system fails to account for the students interest or skill, and while the purpose is to help improve their future prospects it doesn 't attempt to help student develop skills that could be used in the fields they are actually interested in, but rather the ones America would like them to go into to compete with other countries. Students now have no way to truly advance themselves in a creative or productive way until college, and by that point change is too
Paul Lockhart wrote a paper criticizing the current model for mathematic education and how it is inevitably failing to actually teach students math. He states that math should actually be considered a part of the arts (Paul Lockhart pg.3), the reason that students not only lack a sense of interest but an inability to properly learn math is because it isn 't treated as an art. The current practice of giving students overly complicated processes to learn math when in actuality they will use little to none of them in their lives in highly impractical and "destroys curiosity" (Lockhart, Pg.2). He believes that if students were taught math through examples pertaining to actual life use they would not only understand the …show more content…
The current reasoning given for why people should learn math such as algebra is that it will be useful in their lives, when in actuality it will likely not be used, especially in the context upon which it is taught to students. The only way to make math a subject that can not only be learned by students but can also engage their creativity, according to Lockhart, is by using problems that help students to use their imagination. Best done by things like story problems, because the students can visually imagine the problem putting it in a different context. Letting the students realize the actual relevance and use of math rather than telling them how useful it is through a series of problems and formulas that don 't actually relate to their actual lives creates and interest in math rather than the more common apathetic attitude many students have for …show more content…
I 've gone through the education system for 14 years now and doing so I I 've realized that the issues he confronts in his paper are not limited to just math. The American education model has become a system in which students are no longer encouraged to learn, but to simply repeat the information given to them on pieces of paper and remember long enough to take a test to get into college or they risk not having a future. The system fails to account for the students interest or skill, and while the purpose is to help improve their future prospects it doesn 't attempt to help student develop skills that could be used in the fields they are actually interested in, but rather the ones America would like them to go into to compete with other countries. Students now have no way to truly advance themselves in a creative or productive way until college, and by that point change is too