A Reflection on Lockhart’s Lament, Essay Example

Having read the A Mathematician’s Lament by Paul Lockhart, I am assaulted with nearly too many ideas and emotions to put to paper. The piece has invoked feelings of interest, outrage, and realization. Having been one of those students that often struggled with math, it is of particular interest to me.

The primary realization was that math is an art. I recall early in my college career have a debate with a co-worker about the nature of mathematics. She contended math was not an exact science. In my youthful ignorance, I quickly championed the cause of mathematics as a science against her offense. All the while, her argument was made eminently clear by one simple mathematical postulate. She dared me to divide 10 by 3. Naturally, I came up with 3.33 repeating, but the logic didn’t sink in then for me. Instead, I argued until I had won, but what it really happened was that she got fed up with trying to explain things that were clearly not getting through to me.

Interestingly, this the logic behind her point did not become clear to me until years later when I thought to study the philosophy of science. The single instance of a repeating decimal was enough to demonstrate the lack of exactitude in math. That was when the outrage set in. Why wasn’t I taught these things before? My persistence toward winning was symptomatic of the failure of the education system. We were not allowed to enjoy learning. We were only taught to succeed at getting good grades.

This was particularly true with math. Often, the way it is taught in schools makes it dry and boring. Often times too much homework is assign (hours each night), and the joy of seeing relationships denied by the demand for performance and the mass of the work. This seems to be Lockhart’s overall point. Often, especially in math, the failure is not so much with the student as with the way the student is taught. The tragedy is that it is taboo to mention this fact, and generation after generation is shut out from an understanding that could improve the world for everyone.