Speak to me....

Even if I don't quite understand what you are saying.

I love, love, love this series in the NY Times. But I was one of those people in high school who just "learned" calculus by memorizing whatever my (old and ridiculously boring) calc teacher said, practiced, practiced, practiced, and squeaked by.

It seems much more interesting when you think of calculus as the study of change. Why do we have to learn all of the crap, and memorize all of the motions of "doing" calculus before we can get to the beauty of understanding calculus?

I think if I replace the word "calculus" with "math," you'll see my frustration with being a middle school math teacher.

Why do we have to learn all of the crap, and memorize all of the motions of "doing" math before we can get to the beauty of understanding math?

Math is COMPLETELY opposite of reading. We read relentlessly to young children. We tell them stories, read them poetry, have them experience literature from a small age. They see the beauty of literature, the beauty of poetry, the BEAUTY of the written word WHILE we teach them how to decode the written word. They hear glorious books while learning how to understand and comprehend these glorious books.

But no, not math. You're not going to show a kindergarten student the beauty of using math like the golden ratio, parabolas of a jump shot, differentials and integrals, before they can count to 10.

Maybe this is why we get teachers (or humans) who claim to "hate" math. They never got to see the beauty of math. They were stuck...in their boring math classes.