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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)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 489 ratings
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“One of the best critiques of current K-12 mathematics education I have ever seen, written by a first-class research mathematician who elected to devote his teaching career to K-12 education.” ―Keith Devlin, NPR’s “Math Guy”

A brilliant research mathematician reveals math to be a creative art form on par with painting, poetry, and sculpture, and rejects the standard anxiety-producing teaching methods used in most schools today. Witty and accessible, Paul Lockhart’s controversial approach will provoke spirited debate among educators and parents alike, altering the way we think about math forever.

Paul Lockhart is the author of Arithmetic, Measurement, and A Mathematician’s Lament. He has taught mathematics at Brown University, University of California, Santa Cruz, and to K-12 level students at St. Ann’s School in Brooklyn, New York.

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  1. Print length
    140 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Bellevue Literary Press
  4. Publication date
    April 1, 2009
  5. Dimensions
    5 x 0.5 x 7.5 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1934137170
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1934137178
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“One of the best critiques of current K-12 mathematics education I have ever seen, written by a first-class research mathematician who elected to devote his teaching career to K-12 education.” ―Keith Devlin, NPR’s “Math Guy”

“Gorgeous. . . . Lockhart is passionate, contagiously so.” ―Los Angeles Times

“Searing and pointed. . . . An easy, thoughtful, and entertaining read. . . . [Lockhart’s] passion makes the critique compelling.” ―Notices of the American Mathematical Society

“Provides a fresh way of thinking about math, and education in general, that should inspire practical applications in the classroom and at home.” ―Publishers Weekly

“A Mathematician’s Lament is a fascinating argument that anyone interested in mathematics education should read. I promise that they will enjoy the experience, whether they agree with all that Lockhart writes or not.” ―Bryan Bunch, author of The Kingdom of Infinite Number: A Field Guide

“This brief and elegant celebration of mathematics is a charming rant against the way you and I learned the subject. Is painting just coloring in numbered regions? Is the sunset just a list of wavelengths and a compass setting? No more, Lockhart argues, than mathematics is just definitions and formulas. To put back play and joy in our mathematics classrooms, he shows, all we need do is restore the real mathematics.” ―Robert P. Crease, author of The Great Equations: Breakthroughs in Science from Pythagoras to Heisenberg

“Lockhart has written an important, and eloquent, lamentation and exultation: he laments about the state of math education today, but exults in the hope that teachers might be inspired to invite students to experience mathematics as the exciting ‘poetry of ideas’ that it truly is.” ―Barry Mazur, Gerhard Gade University Professor, Harvard University and author of Imagining Numbers (particularly the square root of minus fifteen)

About the Author

Paul Lockhart dropped out of college after one semester to devote himself exclusively to math. Based on his own research he was admitted to Columbia University where he received his PhD. The author of Arithmetic, Measurement, and A Mathematician’s Lament, he has taught mathematics at Brown University, University of California, Santa Cruz, and to K-12 level students at St. Ann’s School in Brooklyn, New York.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bellevue Literary Press; Illustrated edition (April 1, 2009)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 140 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1934137170
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1934137178
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 5.5 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5 x 0.5 x 7.5 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 489 ratings

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  1. Keith Devlin

    Keith Devlin

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    Dr. Keith Devlin is a mathematician at Stanford University in California. He is a co-founder and Executive Director of the university's H-STAR institute and a co-founder of the Stanford mediaX research network. He has written 33 books and over 80 published research articles. His books have been awarded the Pythagoras Prize and the Peano Prize, and his writing has earned him the Carl Sagan Award, and the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics Communications Award. In 2003, he was recognized by the California State Assembly for his "innovative work and longtime service in the field of mathematics and its relation to logic and linguistics." He is "the Math Guy" on National Public Radio. (Archived at http://www.stanford.edu/~kdevlin/MathGuy.html.)

    He is a World Economic Forum Fellow, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society. His current research is focused on the use of different media to teach and communicate mathematics to diverse audiences. In this connection, he is a co-founder and Chief Scientist of an educational technology company called BrainQuake, that designs and build mathematics learning video games. He also works on the design of information/reasoning systems for intelligence analysis. Other research interests include: theory of information, models of reasoning, applications of mathematical techniques in the study of communication, and mathematical cognition.

    He writes a monthly column for the Mathematical Association of America, "Devlin's Angle": http://www.maa.org/devlin/devangle.html; maintains a blog: https://profkeithdevlin.org; and writes articles for the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/keithdevlin-162

    See more on the author's page
  2. Paul Lockhart

    Paul Lockhart

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    Paul Lockhart became interested in mathematics when he was 14 (outside the classroom, he points out). He dropped out of college after one semester to devote himself exclusively to math. Based on his own research he was admitted to Columbia, received a PhD, and has taught at major universities. Since 2000 he has dedicated himself to "subversively" teaching grade-school math.

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Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
489 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Robert Potter
5.0 out of 5 stars An Important Read
Reviewed in the United States on May 11, 2009
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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. Well, Lockhart demolishes the idea, essentially claiming that practical uses are simply by-products of math, and that the real excitement and beauty of mathematics is in the abstract, imaginary, and creative world of mathematical ideas that have no specific connection to the everyday. By-products and applications can make math seem boring and secondary to the uses it serves. I agree with him--and much more now after having read his argument.

I honestly think just about everyone should read this book. Of course math teachers should, as should anybody involved in math education in any way. But I think people outside of math education should read it too. The specific mathematical ideas discussed in the book do not require a strong mathematical background, and I can't think of a better book that so concisely conveys the nature of the subject and the way it is viewed and misunderstood in society. I'm still not sure I agree with Lockhart's every point, but I love this book. (And I might agree with his every point after more thought and experience in the classroom.)
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Christopher Loyd
5.0 out of 5 stars An Old Flame, Rekindled.
Reviewed in the United States on July 26, 2013
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In the fall of 1997, I entered my first day of 7th grade. Prior to the eclipse of me graduating primary school, I was elected to enter the honor courses that our school district provided. Looking back now, honesty tells me I can't really consider this a feat, as growing up in a poorer region of my country - I'm sure anyone with a slight level of intelligence was considered gifted. Nonetheless, that fall I walked into my first period class, first year, junior high - Pre-Algebra.

Weeks went by, and I learned how to solve problems that include fractions and exponents. Simple enough. Same grudgingly long school days where I regurgitated information out of a textbook, and like an adolescent dog the teacher's would crack a smile and light up when I did something correctly, their puppy treat of sorts, as if they actually did anything to aid me other than giving me painstakingly good memorization drills.

During the introductory lesson of how to solve equations, the Solve for x that we've all come to know and hate, I decided to raise my hand and ask the teacher "What is x?" - This was the first time I had ever spoken up in class and questioned the teachings, in the form of "What is x?" "What am I ACTUALLY solving?" "When will I ever use this?" "Why am I wasting precious daylight in a dark, damp classroom when I could be exploring my own problems that I had at age 10?". The teacher misunderstood my question, and reverberated back to me that "What is x?" is the whole point of the lesson. So I reiterated - "No, what actually is x? Why am I solving for x? What purpose does x have in my life?" I can remember the moment, pretty plain-as-day. He looked at me in a confused stare and stated that it was just a math problem and that I needed to learn this for the test we'd be having.

At that point, my interest in math died. Not a slow death like most grade A students that I went to school with due to years of agonizing regurgitated teaching, reaching father than just math. It was a swift, nail-in-the-coffin death that continued to echo throughout my entire education. From that point forward, if a subject did not interest me and I found no meaning of it's contents in which I could deduce a reason as to needing to know the information - either by events that were taking place in my life at the time - or events that I could plausibly suggest may take place in future dates - well, I just didn't apply myself to those subjects. I only learned what I wanted to learn, what interested me.

Luckily, I was a pretty curious individual and self-study became my after-school activity. Computers became my love fairly quickly, despite my lack of knowledge for higher mathematics. Currently, I'm rather successful in my career based on salary, position, as well as overall applied knowledge in my field of study. I never went on to college for fear of placing myself through the same torture I experienced in grade schools.

I had picked up The Mathematician's Lament, among some other mathematics books in a hope to try and rekindle a love for mathematics and problem solving, the latter of which is so ingrained in my everyday life. Thankfully, Paul Lockhart has brought that flame with this book - and my quest for the art of explanation has since been reestablished.
10 people found this helpful
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Nikhil Hogan
5.0 out of 5 stars An honest, insightful perspective of the state of math education
Reviewed in the United States on December 5, 2018
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The author’s love of the subject leaps through the pages to the reader, you really get the sense that he is really trying hard to crush a widely-held view that math is a miserable, dry subject. Math really is fun and exciting!

It’s worth the purchase price just for his concise summation of the current math curriculum and his trenchant take down of high school geometry as it is taught.

There are points where I have some disagreement, as good as this book is. The use of fun games to create interest in math such as playing Go and other games, i question whether we need such gateway devices to create interest in math. If Go is fun, play Go, but it shouldn’t be played with the sole intention of leading to math. Math, really IS fun on it’s own, and without school, more kids will come to it naturally.

Secondly, the author mentions that many of the questions and problems which lead mathematical inquiry have no practical use and it is the sheer pure joy of math itself that is the source of pleasure in doing it. I do not disagree but i would be hesitant to immediately make a statement like that considering math is such a vast subject and perhaps real world applications could very well drive interest in children. He does double back later to mention it’s not really important to worry about such things and I would agree.

Don’t let these nitpicks stop you from buying the book. It’s an excellent book, and I believe the main point that the book successfully delivers is the radical change of view to the standard view of math: it’s an art form, not a misery and a distinctly human activity. Children if given a chance outside of school, will love it and not get turned off by it.. and it will be a pleasurable life long pursuit.
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Top reviews from other countries

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Jeanne Barros
5.0 out of 5 stars Livro interessante.
Reviewed in Brazil on March 11, 2021
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Gostei muito.
One person found this helpful
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Wil Herrgit
5.0 out of 5 stars Ein sehr besonderes, kleines Buch ...
Reviewed in Germany on March 18, 2023
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... schön fände ich es, wenn möglichst viele es lesen - die, die Mathe unterrichten, an der Schule, auch an der Hochschule, in der Lehrerbildung und -fortbildung, in all den Kommissionen, die sich Gedanken darüber machen, was wann, wie und wozu unterrichtet und gelehrt werden sollte. Und wenn die, die es gelesen haben, sich darüber austauschen würden - im Lehrerzimmer, im Kollegenkreis, in all den Gremien und Kommissionen. Fände ich wirklich schön. Schön - wie die Mathematik.
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Bernard M,
5.0 out of 5 stars Motivation totale pour entrer en match
Reviewed in France on November 20, 2022
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J'ai toujours eu ce sentiment que le cursus traditionnel était nul. C'est en contact avec le monde des sciences informatiques que j'ai enfin compris la beauté des math appliquées.
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doug hone
5.0 out of 5 stars Surely you're joking Mr. Lockhart
Reviewed in Canada on August 6, 2020
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Paul Lockhart, if that is your real name (he wouldn't be the first person in the history of math to be a woman masquerading as a man), channels Kurt Godel in explaining why math can be learned but not taught. Like Archimedes he draws a line in the sand then dares us to cross it and see K-12 math education from a different angle.
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Miguel M.
4.0 out of 5 stars Matemáticas en inglés
Reviewed in Spain on July 17, 2021
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Un regalo para mi hijo, que está estudiando matemáticas.
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