On Pi Day, Celebrate Math’s Enigmas – NYTimes.com.
I had to comment.
True, oh so true: “…it’s only when we try to stretch our minds around mathematics’ enigmas that true understanding can set in.” (The Op-Ed’s last line.)
But, far too true, too: “…stretch[ing] our minds around mathematics…” is what so many unscrupulous college administrators want to protect their “customers” from. I know. I am a former math professor.
I personally was told at Washington U. in St. Louis to make a critical course for engineers a “cookbook” course; Engineering Deans wanted “retention”, even if that included cheating on homework, according to the Dean of Student Academic Integrity; and, the Chair of the Math Department laughed loudly when he told me that if he wanted to impart mathematical knowledge he wouldn’t start here. “Here” means with a second year course for the extremely gifted students that Wash. U. boasts about.
(I didn’t listen. I plunged ahead and taught a course where students regularly did MIT level homework, which A students from the cookbook course could not do. The story about Wash. U., can be found on my blog inside-higher-ed.com .)
Washington U. is not particularly special in this regard. It takes many school with such attitudes to produce a country that has fallen from one of the world’s most mathematically literate to one of the least literate.
So, let’s all work together and celebrate Pi day by studying, not math, but why math – and much else – is being “cookbook[ed]” to our students, instead of being taught.
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