A Mathematician's Lament — an Indictment of US Math Education

Posted by ryuzaki0 on Friday June 19, 2009 @06:05AM from the beating-the-joy-out-of-education dept.

Scott Aaronson recently had "A Mathematician's Lament" [PDF], Paul Lockhardt's indictment of K-12 math education in the US, pointed out to him and takes some time to examine the finer points. "Lockhardt says pretty much everything I've wanted to say about this subject since the age of twelve, and does so with the thunderous rage of an Old Testament prophet. If you like math, and more so if you think you don't like math, I implore you to read his essay with every atom of my being. Which is not to say I don't have a few quibbles [...] In the end, Lockhardt's lament is subversive, angry, and radical ... but if you know anything about math and anything about K-12 'education' (at least in the United States), I defy you to read and find a single sentence that isn't permeated, suffused, soaked, and encrusted with truth."

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Re:Cue the other subjects by superwiz · 2009-06-19 07:36 · Score: 0, Redundant

Well, the original reference was about to the rise of influence of religion on public debate in this country. So my question was essentially "what triggered that"?

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Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Re:Cue the other subjects by turbidostato · 2009-06-19 13:53 · Score: 0, Redundant

Hey! That was exactly the paragraph I was thinking of on another post. Time to mod me "redundant".