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March 26, 2008
Lockhart's Lament
This link is to a really interesting and funny paper written by a professional mathematician who decided to teach children.
Excerpt (A catalog entry for the current Trig course):
TRIGONOMETRY. Two weeks of content are stretched to semester length by masturbatory
definitional runarounds. Truly interesting and beautiful phenomena, such as the way the sides of
a triangle depend on its angles, will be given the same emphasis as irrelevant abbreviations and
obsolete notational conventions, in order to prevent students from forming any clear idea as to
what the subject is about. Students will learn such mnemonic devices as “SohCahToa” and “All
Students Take Calculus” in lieu of developing a natural intuitive feeling for orientation and
symmetry. The measurement of triangles will be discussed without mention of the
transcendental nature of the trigonometric functions, or the consequent linguistic and
philosophical problems inherent in making such measurements. Calculator required, so as to
further blur these issues.
www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf
Posted by james at March 26, 2008 03:53 PM