"A Mathematician's Lament!

~ by Paul Lockhart!
The regret of the math teacher the student the process!
Do you agree or disagree with the points made in the article? Why or why not? !
I definitely felt that Lockhart had valid arguments to the way mathematics is being
taught in our schools and how people look at mathematics. I want to highlight a few key
points that stood out in the article and some questioning and thoughts that were
provoked through them.!
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.!
Student centred learning why is it not happening more? How can one test mandate
what true achievement is? Politicians should step into a classroom for a longer amount
of time than to get sufficient campaigning points. Since when did valuable education
have a price tag? When did teachers become so greedy and money hunger to invest in
over expensed textbooks and materials that will be outdated almost immediately. I
understand I am being extreme and I know that having manipulatives and materials can
enhance learning but we are losing touch of what really matters. !
Mathematics is an art!
I love art so why is it so difficult for me to make the connection. I understand from the
outside looking in but the artist inside me is still not convinced.!
Thats what math is wondering, playing, amusing yourself with your imagination.!
I question where this wondering goes children have it innately as they enter school
systems and seems to get lost. Do education systems that rely too heavily on
mandated curriculum and test scores manipulate the way math should be taught and
take the pure joy out of mathematics? !
This rich and fascinating adventure of the imagination has been reduced to a sterile set
of facts to be memorized and procedures to be followed.!

By concentrating on what, and leaving out why, mathematics is reduced to an empty

shell.!
Math is not about following directions, its about making new directions.!
Lockhart talks about taking the creative process out and leaving only the results of a
procedure when given a formula and told exactly how to follow it. I agree with his
philosophy on this, it is important to ensure students understand the why and not only
what happens. I think about how many times I give the formulas/procedures first and
students never really understanding why they are using them and cant re-produce a
formula in various situations. It is hard to re-create what math looks like when I have
been taught by the book as a student, taught to use a book to teach as an educator and
now questioning all and every theory behind the teaching of mathematics. Inquiry
based learning in math is inevitable but my argument is where and when does the
memorization component come in. When are students ready to for that? !
The most striking thing about this so-called mathematics curriculum is its rigidity.!
The curriculum is obsessed with jargon and nomenclature, seemingly for no other
purpose than to provide teachers with something to test students on.!
The mathematics curriculum doesnt need to be reformed, it needs to be scrapped!
The brutal honesty is great! I agree with Lockhart about the textbooks and the overload
of trying to fix the problem with one resource after another and one program or theory
after another. It becomes too much of everything and focusing so much on the
programming that the learning becomes secondary if at all. I wonder though if
curriculum didnt exist at all what would teaching be like then I think about the first few
years of my teaching when curriculum seemed irrelevant and I was teaching math to
students of so many levels it was finding what worked and what they were ready to
discover. I am by no means saying I was teaching quality math but it was far from
rigid and had no order of implementation other than I guess this concept comes next!
Is it possible to have an innate idea of the possibilities of teaching mathematics without
curriculum?!
You dont need to make math interesting its already more interesting that we can
handle!!
Everyone is so busy trying to glorify math and find a way to connect it to everyday life
that thinking beyond our initial reasoning becomes absurd. I am guilty of this, I always
think if I can just connect it to real life then it will make sense and students will get it.
This is part of my problem with teaching math, I search to make meaning of concepts in

my own life or in reality instead of letting go of my initial reasoning and as Lockhart says
a relief from daily life. I end up teaching this to my students, I think a lot of teachers
do. We search for real life meaning until weve exhausted it. I do argue that
mathematics in the real world does have a place and holds meaning in a world that
students live in and absorb on a daily basis. I think a balance and connection can be
made between the real world and beyond.!

!
A good problem is something you dont know how to solve. Thats what makes it a
good puzzle, and a good opportunity. !
Give your students a good problem, let them struggle and get frustrated. !
The main problem with school mathematics is that there are no problems.!
Painful and creatively frustrating as it many be, students and their teachers should at
all times be engaged in the process.!
Lol! how great are these quotes! we spoon feed learning to our students. They have not
reason to try to solve problems because we dont present them with problems deep
enough to credit their level of thinking. It is so much easier to just do the thinking for the
students. Learning in schools today only scratches the surface of a world full of
mathematical content but that gets a comment and mark on the report card! mission
accomplished right?!
Now Im not saying that math teachers need to be professional mathematicians far
from it. But shouldnt they at least understand what mathematics is, be good at it, and
enjoy doing it?!
This is hard to swallow. I question myself what business do I have teaching math to
students when I am only beginning to learn how to delve into the world of mathematics.
How many teachers could read this quote and feel 100% confident that they are fulfilling
the needs of their students are confident in their math teaching? I did however come to
the conclusion that I am not giving up on myself or my future students. I am far better
off knowing that I may not be the best in math or have delivered the best math program
for my students or be at the stage to deliver the best math but I am learning! Being open
to the possibilities and being able to change and collaborate will enhance my future
classroom teaching and who knows maybe someday I will stand from the roof tops
and shout that I AM GOOD AT MATH!!

How do the arguments in the article relate (or do not relate) to your own personal
experience with math as a student? !
Why does mathematics education remain stuck in the nineteenth century?!
I think this quote summarizes my experience in question form!!
When he discusses the impact on high school students and just how boring and RIGID
math class is I really felt the frustration come back to when I was in school. I HATED
math! I would sit in math class for however long and not understand a thing go home,
cry and then face my tutor for an even longer time to go over the same thing. I would
then hopefully have memorized enough of the procedure to pass the next test or have
my tutor complete enough of my work to get a passing grade on an assignment. What
did I understand? Nothing! I had to complete grade twelve math twice and I am sure I
only passed because my father knew the teacher the second time through hockey and
he just felt like he couldnt fail me. Passing with a 50 can only mean one thing! You
didnt really pass! This set the tone for math for me. I was convinced I wasnt good at it
and that was the end of the story. Nobody changed this for me during my own
education. Even in teachers college or in observing classrooms. It all seemed the
same. There were kids that were good at math and kids that werent. I always felt for
the students who I thought were like me so instead of guiding them through there own
inquiry I would instead make things easier for them by giving them the process and
walking them through the math hand in hand. Nobody did this for me so I guess in my
mind I wasnt going to let students feel like me. I was going to help them! Eeeeeek! Im
not helping them become thinkers! I will say that the more I have had to teach math
the more I understand it. Sometimes the light just goes off, I have an ah ha moment
and think wow, it only took 30 years to get that concept I should have learned in grade
5! Maybe Piaget is on to something I wonder what my relationship with math would
be if I had been exposed to a more experimental learning environment. I guess I also
look at my childhood though and math was being taught in the way we played. Games
and sports always exposed us to math without realizing it. Could it be that I am better at
math than I think I am? I get excited teaching certain concepts now because it made no
sense to me once upon a time and now I get it! Maybe that doesnt quite fit Lockharts
definition of what teaching math should look like but I think its a step in the right
direction. I wonder what the future of math holds? I wonder when I have children how I
will conceptualize mathematics? Will I impact their view of mathematics? Will the school
systems change the way mathematics is taught over the next ten years and I will I be
able to reflect on it? In ten years if I come back to this reflection I wonder what I will
think?!