A Mathematician's Lament

How School Cheats Us Out of Our Most Fascinating and Imaginative Art Form

By: Paul Lockhart

Narrated by: Matthew Josdal

A brilliant research mathematician reveals math to be a creative art form on par with painting, poetry, and sculpture, and rejects the standard anxiety-producing teaching methods used in most schools today. Witty and accessible, Paul Lockhart's controversial approach will provoke spirited debate among educators and parents alike, altering the way we think about math forever.

©2009 Paul Lockhart (P)2022 Tantor

intellectually stimulating

An interesting listen regarding math and the education of it. Agreed with some, disagreed with some, but overall found it fascinating to hear his perspective and think anyone teaching or learning math should listen!

Wonderful concept

This book recognizes what I, as a math teacher, struggle with the most. Sludging through a math textbook is the quickest way to lose a student’s interest. However, this book doesn’t quite work as an audio book. There are a lot of diagrams used to prove the author’s points and they aren’t brought through to the audio version.

Beautiful call to action

Math is taught poorly. Mindless memorization of rules we’ll never use. Like an art class where you never make art. Just copy art and learn the names of colors and brushes.

The heart of math is discovery. Can you solve a problem on your own? Can you prove your answer true? What patterns can you find? What interesting problem can you invent?

I strongly agree.

This book is not about math. It’s art, fun & Philosophy(OG. meaning: love of truth)

Would you like to know why you hate schools and studying? Well.. wait no more because this book will show you why and how you can reverse this and enjoy it once again.

Here is the point, this is not about math but rather the joy of figuring something out for your self and how one can communicate this effectively. That’s it so go have fun!!

Math!

Makes you look at math the "right way". Perfect for those with kids in math or teaching the subject.