A Mathematician's Lament, often referred to informally as Lockhart's Lament, is a short book on mathematics education by Paul Lockhart, originally a research mathematician at Brown University and U.C. Santa Cruz, and subsequently a math teacher at Saint Ann's School in Brooklyn, New York City for many years. This strongly worded opinion piece is organized into two parts. The first part, "Lamentation", criticizes the way mathematics is typically taught in American schools and argues for an aesthetic, intuitive, and problem-oriented approach to teaching. The second part, "Exultation", gives specific examples of how to teach mathematics as an art.
Background
This book was developed from a 25-page essay that was written in 2002, originally circulated in typewritten manuscript copies, and subsequently published by Keith Devlin on his online column for the Mathematical Association of America's webzine MAA Online.[1]
Quote
"The first thing to understand is that mathematics is an art. The difference between math and the other arts, such as music and painting, is that our culture does not recognize it as such." [p. 22]
References
Devlin, Keith (2009). Foreword, p. 9 of Lockhart, Paul (2009), A Mathematician's Lament
Further reading
Paul Lockhart, Measurement (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2012). ISBN 9780674284388
------. Arithmetic (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2017). ISBN 9780674972230
External links
Lockhart's Lament, the essay which prefigured A Mathematician's Lament, by Paul Lockhart
Lockhart's Lament, about the earlier essay, by Keith Devlin
Undergraduate Texts in Mathematics
Graduate Studies in Mathematics
Hellenica World - Scientific Library
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