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A Mathematician's Lament: How School Cheats Us Out of Our Most Fascinating and Imaginative Art Form Paperback – April 1, 2009

by Paul Lockhart (Author), Keith Devlin (Foreword)

62 customer reviews

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“One of the best critiques of current mathematics education I have ever seen.”—Keith Devlin, math columnist on NPR’s Morning Edition

A brilliant research mathematician who has devoted his career to teaching kids reveals math to be creative and beautiful and rejects standard anxiety-producing teaching methods. Witty and accessible, Paul Lockhart’s controversial approach will provoke spirited debate among educators and parents alike and it will alter the way we think about math forever.

Paul Lockhart, has taught mathematics at Brown University and UC Santa Cruz. Since 2000, he has dedicated himself to K-12 level students at St. Ann’s School in Brooklyn, New York.

A Mathematician's Lament: How School Cheats Us Out of Our Most Fascinating and Imaginative Art Form

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Product Details

Paperback: 140 pages
Publisher: Bellevue Literary Press (April 1, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1934137170
ISBN-13: 978-1934137178
Product Dimensions: 5 x 0.5 x 7.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (62 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #118,741 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #92 in Books > Science & Math > Mathematics > History
- #111 in Books > Science & Math > Mathematics > Study & Teaching
- #140 in Books > Education & Teaching > Schools & Teaching > Education Theory > Reform & Policy

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Customer Reviews

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5 star		52%
4 star		18%
3 star		18%
2 star		6%
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112 of 115 people found the following review helpful

An Important Read

By Robert Potter on May 11, 2009

Format: Paperback Verified Purchase

Once in a while we read books that we just know are especially important, and that we know we will be thinking and talking about long after reading them. This book is one of them for me.

I am a returning adult student, and I am about to finish my training to become a math teacher. Having gone through my education program, my enthusiasm was just about completely drained, and I've been having trouble remembering why I ever wanted to become a math teacher in the first place. Why would anyone?

Paul Lockhart knows, and his book has reawakened my desire to help students discover the joy of mathematics. His argument is concise, and he makes it forcefully. His book is a joy to read, mainly because his understanding of the subject and his passion for it are clear in every page. He reinforces ideas I already had about how school sucks the life out of math (and all subjects), but he also challenges some of my opinions. I think this will happen with most people who read it.

Once he finishes making his argument about math education in about the first two-thirds of this short book, he devotes the remaining section to describing what he finds wonderful about mathematics itself. This section should make just about anyone want to become either a mathematician or a math teacher.

I want people to read the book for the specifics of his arguments, but I want to discuss one important point that he makes. Many people in math education claim that in order to make math more understandable and interesting to students, we need to show how practical it is and how it is used in everyday life. I've always felt like this idea was wrong, or at least limited in its usefulness in that regard.Read more ›

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73 of 74 people found the following review helpful

Brilliant and a little devastating

By R. Wright on June 15, 2009

Format: Paperback Verified Purchase

When I began to read Lockhart's Lament, I was skeptical -- particularly with his view of mathematics as more of an art than a science. I am an applied mathematician, and I most enjoy teaching applied mathematics, but after serious and humble reflection, I came to fundamentally agree with Lockhart. Mathematics was developed as an expression of human creativity, and teaching it as such is really the only viable option for most students to be able to appreciate it and therefore fully apply it (if they ever need or want to).

As a relatively new mathematics teacher, I appreciate Lockhart's observations of the mathematics curriculum. I taught (college) trigonometry just before reading his Lament for the first time, and I was blown-away (and a little devastated) by the accuracy of his scathing description of that course:

"Two weeks of content are stretched to semester length by masturbatory definitional runarounds... students must learn to use the secant function, 'sec x,' as an abbreviation for the reciprocal of the cosine function, '1 / cos x' (a definition with as much intellectual weight as the decision to use '&' in place of 'and.') That this particular shorthand, a holdover from fifteenth century nautical tables, is still with us... is mere historical accident... Thus we clutter our math classes with pointless nomenclature for its own sake."

This book is an absolute necessity for anyone who wants to make sure their students actually enjoy mathematics. But be warned, if you view teaching mathematics as just a job, this book probably isn't for you.

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49 of 51 people found the following review helpful

An interesting indictment of our current approach to mathematics education

By Dunyazad VINE VOICE on January 31, 2010

Format: Paperback

This is an interesting indictment of our current system of mathematics education, a subject that I almost always enjoy reading about (I very nearly became a mathematics teacher myself not long ago). Lockhart makes his point clearly, eloquently, and succintly--this is a very quick read at only 140 pages of fairly large type.

I agree with much of what he says, though I do think that his claims sometimes go a bit too far: he doesn't seem to see much point in learning to add in an age of calculators, for example.

The main problem I had with this book is that, as far as I'm concerned, Lockhart doesn't offer up a viable alternative to the status quo. It's always easy to criticize, but it's a lot harder to come up with a better way of doing things. Lockhart does offer some ideas about how the ideal mathematics education should function: a mathematics teacher should be a practicing mathematician himself, and should be so engaged in the subject that he has no need for lesson plans or curricula, but can rely solely on his passion for mathematics. Teacher training should be abolished, since someone either is a good teacher or isn't, and nothing can change that. While this sounds nice in theory, it just doesn't seem feasible. I'm not convinced that all these perfect mathematics teachers will suddenly appear, and if they don't, we're left with nothing (which I suppose Lockhart would say is better than the current state of affairs). To me, this doesn't seem like a solution. After reading about how terrible the current system is, I'd like to have seen some real suggestions for how it could be reformed.Read more ›

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

Five Stars

Eloquent and inspiring. A must read for math educators

Published 2 months ago by Rebecca Wabeke

Something to fill an evening with, an interesting concept...

It’s an interesting book. It talked about maths in a way that I thought only Physicists thought of up until now. Read more

Published 2 months ago by Kate Delaney

Four Stars

Good

Published 3 months ago by AMINA

Must read for teachers!!!

This was one of the most inspiring things I have read as a teacher and mathematician. It was a very eye-opening look at math education.

Published 3 months ago by Krist

but very boring. I was hoping for a more exciting book ...

This was ok,but very boring. I was hoping for a more exciting book with some interesting facts. Disappointed.It's more for educators/teachers

Published 4 months ago by Melissa

great gift

Bought this for my husband. He is a math instructional specialist and he loves it.

Published 5 months ago by katwalk34

Math is to be loved!

An excellent review of the modern mathematical education methods, that asks the real questions and provides intriguing answers.

Published 6 months ago by Tom Dickson

having loved my mathematics education

I'm not entirely sure that I agree with everything Paul Lockhart is saying, having loved my mathematics education, but I am so glad that someone is saying them. Read more

Published 7 months ago by Josh Hoffman

Fascinating Read

An excellent book that provides an unique perspective on how mathematics is viewed today.

Published 7 months ago by slow

All Math Teachers and Grad Students Should Read This!

An excellent exploration of the problems in our mathematics education, even to a college level.

Published 7 months ago by Ian Becker

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