While surfing some of the other math blogs in the blogosphere, I ran across a post in Michael Paul Goldenberg’s Rational Mathematics Education blog.
In a recent post of his he mentions an article written by Paul Lockhart entitled, “A Mathematician’s Lament.” It was written in 2002, but has only gotten mass coverage recently, since it was featured on a post at the website of Keith Devlin.
For those of you who don’t know Keith Devlin, you are in for a treat. His writings are among the most lucid you will ever read about math. He makes very complicated things easy to understand. Please do yourself a great favor and visit his website.
You may have heard his lilting voice on NPR as “The Math Guy.” Devlin has also linked to Lockhart’s article, which is available as a free PDF download.
If you have any interest in math at all, even if you are not an educator, you will truly enjoy the enlightening thoughts that Lockhart shares with you. His appreciation, and enthusiasm for math, and teaching it are joy to read.
So take some time and revel in the passion Lockhart will enchant you with. Download the article now from the bottom of the post at Devlin’s site.
Please read the Devlin essay about the article. It says everything I’d want to say, only better.
If there was a way to bake you cookies and send them through the blogosphere to thank you for sharing this link, I’d do it. Wow! This is indeed mind-blowing stuff, and exactly the way I wanted to learn and think about math and was never encouraged to pursue. You have inspired me to look deeply into ways to add real mathematics to our homeschool, to offer my children something better. Again, my deep thanks!
[...] Lockhart, in his absolutely must-read, A Mathematician’s Lament, puts it like this, The point is you don’t start with definitions, you start with problems. [...]
[...] Lockhart’s Lament Print, Bookmark or Share [...]