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

From: Henry_Reynolds <henryfreynolds_at_gmail.com_at_hypermail.org>
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2009 15:20:34 -0000

--- In OliveStarlightOrchestra_at_yahoogroups.com, "barkofdelight" <barkofdelight@...> wrote:
>
> --- Rin wrote:
>
> > On the one hand, I disapprove of math (having been traumatized by just such teachers throughout my education,....
>
> One of Paul's points throughout the book is that what you
> learned in school was really not "Math" but some strange
> made-up subject *claiming* to be useful but really is not:
>
> How many people actually use any of this "practical math"
> they supposedly learn in school? Do you think carpenters
> are out there using trigonometry? How many adults remember how
> to divide fractions, or solve a quadratic equation? Obviously
> the current practical training program isn't working, and for
> good reason: it is excruciatingly boring, and nobody ever uses
> it anyway. So why do people think it's so important?
>
> Real Math, says PL (& I agree), is about reasoning and
> deduction, curiosity and creativity, not rote:
>
> In fact, if I had to design a mechanism for the express
> purpose of destroying a child's natural curiosity and love
> of pattern-making, I couldn't possibly do as good a job
> as is currently being done— I simply wouldn't have the
> imagination to come up with the kind of senseless, soul-
> crushing ideas that constitute contemporary mathematics
> education.
>
> One analogy I use is this: Suppose you discovered that the
> "English" classes taught today were entirely spelling and
> grammar. Suppose they contained no reading of books or poetry.
> Further suppose that students were not exposed to a library
> or had any knowledge of any great writer. What would be your
> reaction when they said to you, "Literature? Yuuck! A bunch
> of memorization and drills and crap."?
>
> [Paul uses similar analogies in Music and Painting.]
>
> Bark!
>


I'm afraid I'll have to be the voice of curmudgeonliness here.

On the issue of drills, I think for people that just aren't talented at math, tons of drills are the only way to go. This is pretty much the sentiment of Steven Pinker (big time neuroscientist and linguist at MIT). Apparently most people are slow to absorb mathematical concepts and without the extra exercises find themselves more and more lost as the material progresses. For what it's worth, this was my experience. I did poorly at math in high school where there weren't many problem sets. But in college I aced calculus in a class for people like me, where we did tons of extra problem sets.

I'll also chime in on the English analogy. It's really rare now for kids to learn grammar particularly well and their writing suffers for it. You can't even tell kids what's wrong with their writing if they don't know grammar concepts well.

In sum, part of what education is supposed to do is to improve students' concentration and to teach them to accurately apply abstract concepts. And tedious drills really do the trick.

Henry
Received on 2009-04-16 08:21:48