Ove Kåven

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(archive) (2017-08-08 17:37:00), category: math
Many children find maths challenging. Could maths education be improved?
Generally, the problem isn’t the children, nor is it necessarily the teacher. The problem is the way we teach maths; it’s completely wrong, and quite damaging. In fact, I believe most of the children who actually succeed in maths, don’t do it by paying attention in class, but by studying maths on their own, for example by reading the maths book in their free time. (This was certainly the case for me.) In any case, I recommend the essay A Mathematician’s Lament by Paul Lockhart, which, although he’s clearly more into pure maths than applied maths, explains the issues beautifully.