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You need to learn math from someone who likes math. Otherwise you end up in a Lockhart's Lament situation, where you just memorize phrases and formulas without
by sp332 4y ago
You need to learn math from someone who likes math. Otherwise you end up in a Lockhart's Lament situation, where you just memorize phrases and formulas without getting the meaning. Maybe figure out where the lesson is going first and then learn the mechanical bits you need to get there. Khan Academy is a really good suggestion.
- Tabular-Iceberg 4y agoThanks for reminding me about Lockhart's Lament, I had almost forgotten, but I agree with everything in it. Maybe a solution to Lockhart's problem would be to actually do that, take the current state of the art of mathematics, what the doctors and professors are working on, do a topsort on all the prerequisites and make that the whole mathematics syllabus from beginning to end. As Salviati explains to Simplicio, the traditional educational milestones are irrelevant because most people forget them anyway and just use calculators. Someone coming out of school only knowing set theory will be no worse off than someone coming out of school knowing long division, because neither of them will actually do any long division, they will both use a calculator.