''A Mathematician's Lament'', often referred to informally as Lockhart's Lament, is a short book on
mathematics education
In contemporary education, mathematics education, known in Europe as the didactics or pedagogy of mathematics – is the practice of teaching, learning and carrying out scholarly research into the transfer of mathematical knowledge.
Although re ...
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
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
,
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
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
Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without recourse to conscious reasoning. Different fields use the word "intuition" in very different ways, including but not limited to: direct access to unconscious knowledge; unconscious cognition; ...
, 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
Keith J. Devlin (born 16 March 1947) is a British mathematician and popular science writer. Since 1987 he has lived in the United States. He has dual British-American citizenship. on his online column for the
Mathematical Association of America's
webzine
An online magazine is a magazine published on the Internet, through bulletin board systems and other forms of public computer networks. One of the first magazines to convert from a print magazine format to being online only was the computer maga ...
''MAA Online''.
[Devlin, Keith (2009). ''Foreword'', p. 9 of ]
Quotes
"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."
"Other math courses may hide the beautiful bird, or put it in a cage, but in geometry class, it is openly and cruelly tortured."
References
Further reading
* Paul Lockhart, ''Measurement'' (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2012).
*------. ''Arithmetic'' (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2017).
External links
Lockhart's Lament the essay which prefigured ''A Mathematician's Lament'', by Paul Lockhart
about the earlier essay, by
Keith Devlin
Keith J. Devlin (born 16 March 1947) is a British mathematician and popular science writer. Since 1987 he has lived in the United States. He has dual British-American citizenship.
Books about mathematics education
Books about philosophy of mathematics
2009 non-fiction books
Bellevue Literary Press books
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