Re: Paul Lockhart's book reviewed in the L.A. Times!

From: Rin Watt <katecwatt_at_gmail.com_at_hypermail.org>
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2009 15:05:51 -0000

It's from Hard Times.

Here's a tale for you, about how math was taught a while back:

When I was in 4th grade, at Laguna Beach's very progressive grammar school, I was struggling with long division.

The teacher, a young woman, set all the boys to working problems and pulled all the girls into another room. There, she worked with us for half an hour on ladylike ways to stand, sit, and walk.

I swear!

And it was only a few years ago that a talking Barbie doll said "math is hard!"

The message that math is for boys has not died out. And the message that math is dry and difficult and a process of memorization and pain is alive and well too. Boys are sometimes taught to take pride in overcoming that dry and miserable slog, but even they don't usually enjoy it.

I'm not sure how our friends who like math (who are mostly the men in the group, with the rather notable exception of Jennifer nee Turley) learned both to do it and to like it.

Rin
Received on 2009-04-16 08:05:54