> I find myself endlessly frustrated by these discussions around the teaching of mathematics. People seem to want to make it more conversational, more interacti

> I find myself endlessly frustrated by these discussions around the teaching of mathematics. People seem to want to make it more conversational, more interactive, more engaging. It doesn't work that way! Learning mathematics is like learning to play a musical instrument. No amount of 1-on-1 discussion with a teacher will get you to mastery. That's flat out untrue. I speak from experience of teaching math all the way from grade school to teaching undergrads and grad students to teaching adults. I can take a failing student who is completely confused and get them on track in a few hours over a few weeks. 1-on-1 discussions are not just really important, they're astronomically more effective than anything else. Making math engaging is the number one thing that matters. Being an engaging teacher matters. Adapting to a specific student and their needs matters. Someone can practice something they hate for 10 hours and get nowhere. Someone else can practice something they love for 10 minutes and make amazing progress. You remember things that are engaging, you hardly remember anything about things that are boring. This is what all of these AI tools get wrong. Even if they understood the problem domain and could explain it --- which they cannot. I've had this experience with adults switching jobs into programming too. So many avoided STEM because they hated math. After like two hours together they not only got math, they started to enjoy it. Happens all the time. > You just need to practice. For hours and hours and hours. This is probably the worst brain damage that Gladwell and others have done with the whole nonsense of 10,000 hours of practice. No. No amount of poor quality practice where you're hitting your head against the wall will be productive. You need to learn how to practice math. Practice is worth it after you've gained some mathematical sophistication and some understanding of the problem domain. Most people need peers or a teacher or a tutor to help get them unstuck and point you in the right direction. > The teacher cannot replace individual practice time. No amount of practice for 99% of people can replace a tutor. Yes, people with mathematical aptitude don't need one; I didn't. But most people need to have some guidance and then they can practice.